The Real American Tragedy-Hunger Amid Ple
Coleman, MeAlister
The Heal American Tragedy—Hunger Amid Plel By MeAlister Coleman "¦BEFORE me as I write is the report of an experienced physician (a researcher for one of the largest New York hospitals), on...
...Almost daily statements are printed in the Pittsburgh papers to the effect that taxi service to "back to normal" but the statement of the union, made after careful check, that little more than a hundred cabs were in scab operation have been completely suppressed...
...It was fthis discovery of petroleum in that state, together with the war terror and a dismal opportunism that induced some leading Socialists to line up with the Democratic Party, that destroyed the Socialist movement in Oklahoma...
...But the whole situation,is today changed and farmers are bein e; proletarianized even in the old Roman sense of ragged, hungry, and propertyless tillers of the soil...
...he could be reminded that mice spend their lives hunting for the beetles a kind and Just providence has showered on the nation...
...Our attitude SSSaj of sympathy and ssasj and yet our prcgrsto a* ophy should be prnasi firmness and uwsdet that those who fsvar *f| tsJ and lasting sUaJF the deapoUert tote saw we can get ose <* *tM sneakers before the Ssm will be worth wsfla m receive our uteratajstj to a»k for mote *,**| turn home...
...Surrounding every mine are iwo« rows pf outhouses...
...They simply won't work...
...If any Moscow-inspired Red should object to his enforced diet and demand of his fellow Bolsheviks, "Are we mice or are we men...
...Fresh meat is unknown...
...In any event, the individualist outlook of these farmers will pass slowly into a class consciousness that will lead to cooperation with the working class of the cities, providing that our own propaganda is fundamentally Socialist and based upon the class solidarity of these two working class groups...
...The troops being recruited for this revolt recall the maddened Jacquerie of the French Revolution...
...He is also editor of The Bugle Can,** the weekly of the movement Each issue of this journal registers the rising tempo of this new style Populism...
...It Is thai Basaaj of the despoiled mas as] ever> growing aeaaatsa in the world, Os* eani of the abolition SfaatsM oat this class assay 2 majority, in the ssvananv This does at aau ta should appBBtts alter m ant farmer ot is aw n with a prociaaataaa «¦ ism is doomed **4sjm can be done for tat^ett till it is abolishes, %] traxy...
...They tBI us now that mis is not the deathrattle of capitalism that fills die...
...Black as the scene is, to lighten it with the fires of burning barricades still seems to me a fantastic and futile gesture...
...The coal companies tracing ownership back to such philanthropists as Andrew "Library" Carnegie, John D. "Pellagra" Rockefeller and Charles "$1 a year" Schwab, carry on the traditions of their owners...
...One day after tiring of this Utopian literature which was read to the accompaniment of "Happy Days Are Here Again", played on a< record that had the appearance of a second hand cross word puzzle...
...Western Pennsylvania's scenery rivals the old world's garden spots of beauty...
...That is, we most be clear and precise if we are to make headway against the* vague rural movement that is now rising in the West...
...It is expected that from ten to twenty thousand people will attend the convention which will organise for the presidential campaign next year...
...I have seen in gray downs, * on the very city streets in which I live, men and women with sacks slung across their, shoulders fighting away the dogs and the cringing cats from the garbage pails before the apartment houses, rummaging desperately through those pails for something to quiet the fiend of hunger that gnaws at their vitals...
...The miners, live in the large ones...
...As the bard put it "How the hell can we work When therefs so work to do...
...want no moratorium on hasnjaka want the aid of it forever...
...Throughout the whole West today farmers have lost their farms and have become tenants...
...It must be confessed that the moratorium on thinking by politicians, bankers and economists has bad a beneficial effect, as may be seen by present conditions...
...Why," thought I with regrets, "did not the Fates endow me with the qualities of an exterminator...
...1will take some years of education to link this rural proletariat up with Socialist workers of the city because the individualist complex of the farmer is not immediately sloughed off when he sinks to a tenant status...
...Certainly the present administration cannot be held responsible for the condition Just mentioned...
...They believe that the man whose legs have been amputated should stand on bis own feet They believe that the nation should be drugged with rugged individualism.' Cant Find me Corner As a result there to national loss of appetite, a slowing up of the- metabolic processes, impaired vision resulting from looking for prosperity to turn the comer and the disappearance of a sense of direction with the mislaying of the corner itself...
...The Heal American Tragedy—Hunger Amid Plel By MeAlister Coleman "¦BEFORE me as I write is the report of an experienced physician (a researcher for one of the largest New York hospitals), on the conditions of health and nutrition among the children of the striking coal-miners of West .Virginia...
...It stood for government ownership of the railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, sympathized with the struggles of organized workers, and demanded the abolition of the mercenary army of Pinkertons employed to break strikes...
...We're having beetle soup for dinner...
...Its composition and its vagueness enable .one to forecast its end...
...This means that the kids in those West .Virginia hills are being fed on a monotonous diet of potatoes, pinto beans and sow belly, day in and day out...
...The Parmalee Company has announced its firm Intention to break the union which was formed in the fire of one of the bitterest strikes that the city of Pittsburgh has ever seen the first four months of last year...
...The economic basis of class consciousness underlies vast areas of the wheat and corn belts and this makes it fruitful soil for the sowing of Socialist propaganda...
...world with its awful sound...
...A nominal sum is charged the miner for the dynamite he uses, the light on his cap and the sharpening of his tools...
...Other factors that contribute to the rather unsettled state of business are the references made to it as a depression...
...Then the barren shafts of a soft coal tipple strike you in the eye with choking force...
...From five to twelve persons of both sexes and varying ages are born, live in a fashion and die in these unpainted Shan ties...
...The numerous victims while on the bottom, think in terms of those who are on the top...
...Or it would be independent in a number of districts and fusionist in others...
...Today the free miners have food rarely, less clothing and of the fun life demanded for human beings by our best psychologists and by our best politicians, they know nothing...
...Everyone who reads and-buyers of the tabloids know that the depression is psychological...
...In Western States it might nominate an independent ticket for state offices and fuse with the Democrats in Congressional districts or Just the reverse...
...The only thing in addition to the cry of "abolish usury" is the naive assurance that after this movement obtains control of the government all other questions can be settled through the initiative and referendum...
...hemmed around by the constant menace of death and disaster, these men in the dark and their children are the symbols of the tragedy that the criminal fact of hunger in a land of plenty poses before us...
...Before finishing the course, a physician ordered me to take a complete rest All reading matter was denied, the one exception being the twenty-one volume set of "How To Create an Industrial Boom...
...ings...
...It is obvious that the farmers were more advanced in their thought in 1892 than they are in 1982 if the Harvey program is accepted and this program appears to be the basis of this rising third party movement...
...Like the farmer who raises steers but cannot afford shoes, the miners grasp from the earth the source, of electric power but are dependent on candles and oil lamps for illumination of what may be termed through courtesy, their homes...
...It is a coincidence that has kept the sight and feel of cash money from these miners for years at a time...
...it is our asfc 1 the masses with ||'| to fight for iiiaaaiisja bring relief, that wol them to fight for mou foster discipline in tat and that will buOd tail which will make ftp approach the final tost ttructing capitalism an basis...
...A comparison of this with the Populist program of 1892 reveals a marked contrast...
...I even pondered for a long time over "Personals" such as the following: Bedbugs, roaches and other vermin exterminated Detective work...
...If our movement is to be Socialist it must be based upon the' claims and interests of the exploited workers...
...Snails are eaten in France, snakes in Africa and locusts in Asia...
...This approach leaves no room -for vagueness...
...This region.was not a stronghold of Socialist sentiment but it became a promising and hopeful movement in Oklahoma because that state had a large percentage of tenant fanners...
...Until thM aether in a mam movement...
...The maa was fined to the job...
...The text book of the present crusade, The Book," is by the same writer...
...and farmers to wrest power...
...The tragedy of hunger...
...den rial which states that the person seeking admission has read Harvey's book and is "fully inxormed as to the effect of a financial system based on usury...
...It to this that distinguishes it from all sentimental and BasahsHB movements that ain^J the present oasnenjaai production and ssssttaa There may be taai who do not accept ah view and who assert an lines are not at rlanj above...
...The clarity of their ideas is matched with their mumbling figures of the box car and adding machine variety they utter...
...The miners are traditionally American in this respect They, like Rotarians, mill barons and other salt of this depressed earth, work not to make money because even when times are good they make little—but because to be idle is not respectable...
...second, no one shall be bound to carry this out An Army of Blind Revolt From all sections of the West and the South will come thousands of discontented men and women representing a chaos of ideals...
...Pittsburgh Taxi Strike Holds Fast...
...About 100 farmers and renters from the sparsely settled mountain district attended, sad Hogan premised his support in organizing the new party, which wul capitalize the discontent of the farmers and the workers in Marion and Cttachfieln mills...
...revival of the old Populism of the nineties that extends from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific Coast and expanding even into the Southern States...
...That somehow, in some obscure and mystic manner, the dying thing will revive...
...There has always been hunger in the background of these meager lives and there always will be so long as coal is owned by the Rockefellers and Mellons and Peabodys, the beads of private corporations whose stockholders are hungry for dividends...
...It, of course, demanded free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, which was the popular "money reform" of the farmers at that period...
...It will meet in national convention at Monte Ne, Arkansas, on August 25 to organize a new party...
...Hooray for Yankee Doodle Beetles...
...And yet, like Moses of old, the vast majority of us are forbidden to r enter out most ait on'our Pisgah heights yearning towards the goal we set out to achieve...
...That is...
...It emphasises the mortgaged indebtedness of the masses, the interest paid on it to bankers, and urges "the government ownership of^he banking system, a moratorium law, suspending for a fixed time the collection of all interest bearing bonds and mortgages, till statesmanlike wisdom decides what is to be done with these debts...
...The outcome of all this was certain and the movement was delivered to Bryan at Chicago in 1896...
...I started to read a daily paper, commencing with the weather reports and ending with the classified ads...
...Our' newspapers could rise to the occasion and instruct their Directors of Household Institutes to devise varied methods of serving beetles 37 times a week...
...Where Socialism Differs The Socialist Party should ap-, proach this problem in terms of a class cleavage which ranges propertyless farmers and wage workers in one group and the banking and capitalist exploiters in another group...
...In the list of those who propose to attend as reported from week to week are realtors, a variety of money reformers, small town preachers with one reported as the head of the Apostolic Church of Illinois, editors of small town weeklies, the president of the Prosperity League of America, a few single taxers, some representatives of local farmer and labor organizations, certainly some politiicans willing to ride this discontent into office, a few who had been active \n the Nonpartisan League, followers of the late Tom Watson of Georgia who spent his last years attacking Socialists, Negroes, Jews and Catholics, fuel onists and confusionists, with the bulk of the delegates being dist~3ased farmers ready to make war against capitalism but ill-informed as to the character of this capitalism which has robbed them and reduced many of them to rags and hunger...
...mines, oil on...
...A row of large outhouses and a row of small ones...
...The composition of the convention will consist of a free-for-all admission with only one proviso...
...Aisgj first time in the history ef«H we can here, and now and tm ejg9 make a definite end to this assmH criminal thins;—the real «3B TRAGEDY...
...In spite of six weeks of virtual starvation less than a score of union members have broke ranks to return to work...
...That these sums including the cost of a few potatoes purchased at the company store manage every weak to balance or total more than a% system of benevolent capitalism permits a miner to be given for his labor is only a coincidence to be sure...
...The goal of the new party win be the unseating of Sheriff Adkins, famous for his tactics in the killing of six fleeing workers sad wounding of 25 during the Marion strike...
...Throughout the region of this rising the Socialist Party was fairly well organized before the World War and in Oklahoma it had five or six members of the legislature...
...In the Solid South the only opposition to the Bourbon Democrats were the Republicans so in Southern States the forms of political action described above were followed in the South with the Republican Party as the agency for fusion deals...
...But it is a coincidence that occurs every payday to more than 50,000 miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky...
...Shadowing in...
...save millions in unemployment relief and banish Bolshevism from our starving midst—Just by shutting our er-es and opening our mouths—the beetles will fly in propelled Try an American desire to get somewhere...
...There is another way, thalfl tent and immediate drmaniM relief, 'before it is too ls*s\*f| of these demands upon anali neas of the workers i 1111 ukase3 see the truth that after aH, tttfl lies in their hands...
...The Parmalee which operates in most every principal city In the United States has everywhere successfully defeated aU attempts to organize its drivers except in Pittsburgh, where the local drivers on their own initiative struck and while on strike organized a militant union that together with public opinion forced the open-shop concern to give at least partial recognition to the union...
...It was now easy to understand the thrill of the subjects who write, or at least read the stories of their successes in the American Magazine and other waiting room literature...
...This is summarized in the cry, "abolish usury...
...Well, maybe so...
...j their exploiters from the flea...
...COIN99 HARVEY'S PROJECTED CONFERENCE WOULD LEAD RURAL REVOLT CP A BLIND ALLEY OF FUTILE FIGHT »FOR < MONEY REFORMS By James Oneal AS MIGHT be expected, considering the bankruptcy of milions of farmers, there is a rapidly developing...
...Save our gardens and lawns, save our workers from starving...
...As long as we have that attitude of mind, there will be no recess from the present recession...
...take the cases of (tolustntm of grandeur...
...But if there is anything in us of Socialist fire, of plain, ordinary guts, let us here and now resolve to pull down the curtain upon this American tragedy...
...It All Becomes Clear Still musing on the loss to the world, I came across an ad for a book on psychology...
...Neither do I believe that we can be of any use in these tanal souls and strike vicious blows'«| by preaching the doctrine of 'nan ' of gradualness...
...To be sure, there are other factors besides the psychological one: the physical, for example...
...g over the government for the haH a trap cooperative commonweal...
...If may be necessary for every individualist to swim over to European cap...
...It reminds one "f the wit who once said that anarchism consists of two proposals.- First, there shall be nothing...
...The writer recently started to take a course in "The Cause and Cure of Industrial Depression...
...For mile on mile its green-gowned mountains evoke the greatest admiration from the spectator...
...Tenant Farmers' Vain Hopes That a few Socialists have been lured by this movement indicates a - danger that must be faced...
...It is a blind revolt that is emerging in the West and out of it may easily come a few demagogues who will exploit it for their own purposes...
...The Miners "Hom&" Real Food, and Good Clothing Exist Only in Promises By David Schick ACOAL MINE is an ugly thing but a miner's life is uglier...
...In a flash all was made clear to me...
...It is certain that a change is coming...
...was the subject of the debate held at the Bethlehem school house in the heart of the Blue Ridge mountains...
...This movement not only presents a grave situation for the Socialist Party, because it will be a competitor, but also because on its national committee are a few individuals who have been identified with the Socialist movement Moreover, the writer within the past month or two has received a number of letters from readers of The New Leader, persons who call themselves Socialists, who intend to cast their lot with this reviving Populism...
...It began with the fundamental statement that "the interests of rural and civic labor are identical" and that their "enemies are identical...
...To be seated and participate in the proceedings all that is required is to sign a specially designed ere...
...The leading sponsor of the movement is W. H. Harvey, author of "Coin's Financial School," tie text book of the money "reformers" in the Bryan-Populist campaign of 1896, which had an enormous circulation...
...Poor people, thousands of them, going down into the earth to hear out the black basis of our power-driven civilization, under the meat dan-' gerous circumstances...
...Once it was the intellectual appeal of an ordered and planned society that won me to Socialism...
...The delegate receives a badge and is seated and he is assured that in signing the credential that he isn't bound to anything...
...J In any event oar Jsrei vince wage workers SSS-j farmers that even tfg*J business becomes P~"~J (H 'nterest to ttdmm^ est rate conatoUat aasj the cost of the serfStoJ that capftaliit corpora" and control the hask» the railroads, the tmgj eshones...
...We offer the idea gratis to President Hoover as a solution to their problem...
...If some pestilence had swept the land, if our crops were blighted, our soil made barren, our producers of food stricken down, we might understand that today six and one-half million men and women and their children were looking*through hopeless eyes at the approach of another winter of stark horror...
...It must be admitted beetles are plentiful and at present most wastefully executed in large numbers...
...Even economists, statisticians and statesmen have proven it to their own satisfaction...
...Many of the newly created tenant farmers will live in the hope that they can recover their status as owners and a few may recover it if capitalism regains something of its old vigpr in the next few years, but all indications are that most of these farmers are doomed to a life of tenants working for capitalists or banks that have taken over their farms...
...They figure largely in the census, in the voting returns of the political parties privately owned, and in the crowds in the vicinity of factory gates and employment agencies...
...In time,- a movement could be started by the Daughters of the Revolution to change the name of the Japanese Beetle to "Yankee Doodle Beetle" in recognition of its services in forestalling a decay of "rugged individualism...
...Farmer-Labor Party Formed in Marion, N.C MARION, N. C. (FP).—As the result of a debate between Lawrence Hogan, leader of the 1929 strike at Marion, and C. L. Lytic, Republican politician, a farmerlabor party will be organized in McDowell County, N. C "Should the farmers aad workers organise a new party in the coming election...
...Thank God For Water Water likewise is lacking in these humble dwellings and is to be procured only from a community well provided by the grace of God who created springs and what is more important by the grace of the coal company who furnish the pump but do not deign to keep it clean or in repair...
...iw who have them pinned to 4s9 marching shoulder to thoaldat...
...1 REVIVAL OF POPULISM AGAIN THREATENS TO MISLEAD EARNER...
...It influenced millions of wage workers and farmers...
...Without tail as, this experience, tsa < this discipline aad tar a final victory is nsttsi subject class without tab tion is more likely to S) to Fascist advestaaaj work out its own istam is the training, eaaassl race aad dtoessBse sj workers aesjetes Is sag new that fits thaa tmm tasks of tomorrow...
...Not that we can hope to get these tenant farmers marching under a Socialist banner within a few years but we can probably get quite a number into Socialist locals and win others to support the Socialist Party in elections...
...Never again shall I keep tolerant silence while same "liberal" teUs me that, after all, capitalism needs only to be "ameliorated'' -to become the most' satisfactory system for the production and distribution of goods-and services whereby we five...
...J These are the raassa is so essential to fisssfl educational work «vst3 est* of the working ptsm a! and urban industtal this recognition of OS A tagonism we fall seat J a Socialist meississt • not hsve to shoot Kjj housetops on every esil thus degenerate into i aa maoism, but If at IMW In terms of tats tatajsj will make progress.___t The writer to aesBgJ national office wffl SI jj range for enough tattW delists to be on tasgtij the Arkansas ess i sslljPii b'.es »o thai the BOSSa tion can be put ssseWlJ sands in literature safe...
...This is a state of mind .that accompanies installment buying...
...No Canaan ever held more promise thsn America in 1931...
...A rachitic, mal-nourished generation of those who are now" the children of workers may keep alive long enough to take the places of their outworn parents, new slaves to the old machines...
...American workers cannot afford to be squeamish with hunger, precedent aad unemployment urging them toward-the table...
...The result was ihat in the West Populism singled out the Republican Party as the enemy and in the South it singled out the Democratic Party as the enemy...
...to is to get results—for a time...
...And not alone among the miners, but among the workers almost everywhere in textile mills, in the shops, in the city factories, hunger takes its devastating course, until men and women of good will beat their hands together in despair over man's cruelty to man...
...R is a coincidence that would" have perpetuated a serfdom more terrible than that of the Middle Ages had not the miners struck against it In the days of Soandso the bold and Whatahlsname the Brave Lord of Whereveritwas, the serfs were fed, and boused, often in the castle where their masters slept and ate, as heartily and as often as their liege lords...
...They are goaded by hunger, knowing that something is wrong, but so ill-informed that they win strike blindly at their enemies and march on to the end of another Populist death in the arms of a capitalist party...
...It concentrates on one grievance alone, the "money question...
...Not Even Populism The literature of this movement shows that, despite the fact that the farmers are even worse off than they were in the nineties, the program does not measure up to the Populist program of 1892...
...In other words, pit is becoming Oklahomaized in the sense of Oklahoma before the discovery of oil...
...Populism i* eertsstfim same result* . * |pj Hunger, State of Mind Profound Psychological Research Shows Depression Must a Myth By Ben Blnmenberg AN evidence of the part that chance plays in influencing great discoveries, may be seen in the instance here given...
...It shoots a powerful ray of light through the whole economic set-up of capitalism and bares the fundamental antagonism between the working masses and the ruling capitalist class...
...The ad of the book on psychology made clear subjects heretofore inexplicable...
...all its branches...
...Let the nation with typical Yankee Ingenuity kill six or seven bugaboos with one fell swoop...
...They think that a menu card is a meal and count their incomes in terms of national wealth, value of exports and bank clearance...
...the less thinking, the less eating, speaking in the terms and figures of the Great Engineer...
...For *^*T...
...While our study has been, thorough and bears out the discovery of the most profound minds who have found that the present depression is psychological...
...AMEMBER of bnt of the Building Trades Unions who has „een unemployed for 17 months was being dunned for his dues by his business agent "Come down to the house and we'll talk about it", he said...
...One may Man there are mtenaeaefcl agriculture and wail that occupy a twutoji tween the two ciasi M have cited and yet ant] visions are real, thereto conspicuous, and the ass of capitalism Is to Bbs] of those living is tat ad to the class of tbtsaMt era...
...will leave theJ*S in possession of •**2s| a power that wffl saawj sweat the *B"JJn5^5| that they shotafl **WZJ gram of collect!** •P5| these great power* mm and dtotributiQB-^^pj futility and defeat...
...She finds generally that in the towns which she visited the wages paid (when wages were paid) averaged around sixty to seventy cents per person per week for food and clothing...
...Jefferson -once said that the most wonderful thing he had ever beheld in all his crowded years was the ability of the poor to stand suffering...
...This movement has its weekly publication and its text book which is sailing in large quantities...
...But everywhere the corn waves bravely in the summer heat, the wheat goes abundantly away into the horizon lines, the fruit hangs heavy on the bending trees...
...In the we are preparing a scholarly work on the relation of a nut diet aad glandular development to industrial depressions...
...In the past few years, more, and more, it is the thought of those kids on the West Virginia hills, those shuffling and beaten folk on New York City bread-lines, the look in the eyes of upstanding, workless workers who have begged me for a bite to eat these past horrible years—these things have swept away any intellectual questionings, any doubts and hesitations which may have assailed me in my bookish days...
...No less disturbing is the visual appreciation of the manner of existence of the coal diggers and their families...
...They are alive te be sure, but they have never known what it means to be really fed...
...Satisfaction guaranteed...
...Explaining Installment Baying The various schools of psychology have made heavy contributions to the reasons for depressions and the case histories furnish sprightly reading as every school girl knows...
...When people lack food they are hungry, a subtle bit of observation made by a famous newspaper columnist The Behaviorists have also pointed out the connection between eating and thinking...
...Two Days Work A Week The miners are permitted to wrestle with the avaricious grip of nature on her black diamonds, two days a week...
...Company Lies About Service (St » New LmSu CmhuwpIiiW PITTSBURGH, Pa—The Parmalee Transportation Company whose soe union taxi drivers struck on June 12th has fired its entire staff of telephone switch board operators for refusing to tell customers over the phone that there was no strike...
...During the years of the development of the former Populist movement even that movement had no consistent policy of political action...
...The truth is that capitalism, entrenched as it is today, would welcome such desultory and disorganized violence as might arise from the blind lashing out of hungry men...
...Not one of those examined, and they were picked at random, had any fresh milk since the day he or she was weaned...
...Revive in time to sink again five.or six or seven years from now...
Vol. 13 • August 1931 • No. 5
