Empty Gestures: or Relief vs. Ballyhoo
Solomon, Charles
Empty Gestures: or Relief vs. Ballyhoo *By Charles Solomon Jf. Y. candidate for II. S. Senate assails administration "reconMrttctioh program** and points the stay to real relief EVIDENCE...
...While powerful and active propaganda sources distort seasonal activity into evidence of returning prosperity, the depression deepens ominously...
...An eloquent reaction to the situation, as far as the administration is concerned, appears in the fact reported in the press a few days ago dealing with the loans made by the Finance Reconstruction Corporation covering the period from July 21 to 31 inclusive...
...and nothing short of mass purchasing power will avail...
...At this rate it would take about 133 years to provide decent housing for those who need it...
...at head quarters when plans for effective cooperation with Bronx radical organ 1 nations in the coming campaign will be made...
...Conditions are most favorable...
...Between 1927 and 1929 there was an increase of about 393,000 in the number of workers employed and the additional wages paid were $572,828,522...
...Standing behind them Is the Bronx Tenants' Emergency League and the Socialist Party, with a battery of lawyers and real estate experts including Jacob Panken, Matthew Levy, Solomon Perrin, Alfred Belskin, Aaron Levsnstein, and Hennas SaJtzman, and the support of workers throughout the Bronx...
...Related to the housing problem are the kindred problems of crime, fflness and premature death which costs the country billions annually...
...Only In this /ay will the people be enabled to $100,000 Fund Is Socialists9 Goal (ContlnssS fr« Psf* TkrM) made during the next few day*, while preparations are made to enlist every Socialist organisation, and every sympathetic group in the drive to reach the f 100,000 goal...
...New York University Is the latent school to form a Thomas-for-Prenl - dent Club In the New York area Foreign Language Leaflets Platforms In Lithuanian...
...Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Finnish, lltalian, Bohemian and Jewish are available through the headquarters of the various language federations, Olstenk>y the Innumerable benefits of cheap electricity...
...But before jumping to conclusions on the basis of this Increased wage bill, the following facts should be considered: t Basic Reason for DepreesioRS In 1927, the total value of goods manufactured was $82,718,347,289 and in 1929 it was $69,417,515,929...
...In spite of these concessions to the landlord, he told the tenants, "Pay or get out-" When the landlord adopted this attitude, the 212 tenants became OS* m their d«Urau nation to resist the evictions...
...Yet this is the Republican-Democratic "relief" program...
...The R. F. C. may lend to states, municipalities, limited dividend corporations and utilities the sum of $1,500,000,000 for revenue producing capital improvements...
...The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics announces a three 'per cent drop in Jobs for the month of July, as compared with June, and a drop in payrolls for the same period of 6.1 per cent...
...18 and 17 In the Rand School studio...
...This decline in mass purchasing power was striking, before the depression set in...
...Faced with the actual eviction of four tenants and the threatened dispossessing of 70 others, Matthew Levy, of Paaken A Levy, lawyer for the Tenants' League, has prepared answers for all the tenants Involved and is defending them in the courts to the last ditch...
...Aiding these capitalists is the Tammany-controlled Home Relief Bureau, which has been applying pressure—not without the vigorous protest of Judge Psaken and the Socialist Party— on Socialist and unemployed tonants who are supposed to receive relief In an attempt to break the strike...
...Comrade Levy has succeeded in delaying evictions off so that no tenant has been put out...
...Instead of cowing the tenants into submission by his eviction of four unemployed workers, the landlord has driven them Into a solid front, with the result that the victory is in sight for the tenants...
...Experts agree it would require not less than 40 billions to rehouse the forty millions now living in homes no longer suitable for human habitation...
...Bronx Tenants Holding Firm in Slioiom Aleichem Rent Strike IN A SHARP clash between the greed of entrenched capital and the solldartty of working people fighting (or the right to decent living conditions, 313 tenants of the Hholom Aleichem apartments at 8481 Olios place, Bronx, are entering the fourth week of a rent strike in protest against the wholesale eviction of their unemployed comrades...
...They are led by Samual Laderman, president of the Sholom Alelchem Cooperative Society and member of the Socialist Party...
...What Should Be Done The Federal government should spend four or five times the amount contemplated in the present law, at once and regardless of whether or not revenues will accrue from the completed projects...
...The law makes available for demolishing slums and building decent homes for the workers—about three-fourths of one per cent of what Is actually needed...
...What a commentary on the Governor who would put men to work planting trees in the event he Is elected to the presidency...
...It houses the Tenants Emergency League, a very active organisation in rent strike affairs, as well as the Unemployed Leagues of the Bfonx...
...Their buying power must be created if the depression 1* ever to be lifted...
...Stirring Bronx Weekend Plans ACROWDED weekend of activities will mark the formal opening of the campaign In the Bronx...
...For the State of New York, the Later, Department reports 5 per cent more unemployment for July as against June for manufacturing Industries, and seven per cent for wages...
...LouU Hcndln, Samuel Orr and others, wU...
...Billions flow into the pockets of various sections of the capitalist class while the pockets of the great masses of the workers continue empty...
...And because of their cooperative spirit, the tenants have gladly sacrificed part of their meager earnings so that their fellow workers, victims of capitalist chaos, would not be made homeless and hungry...
...We have therefore a production value increase, of close to 7 billions with less than $600,000,000 additional paid to labor to enable it to purchase this enormously increased output...
...S. Senate assails administration "reconMrttctioh program** and points the stay to real relief EVIDENCE accumulates rapidly to prove that the widely heralded Hoover program of reconstruction enacted by the recent congress with the aid of the Democrat* will not meet the in c-reasingly desperate needs growing out of the economic situation...
...Workers In the Bronx who are In similar difficulties are urged to get In touch with the Tenants' League, Murray Gross, Secretary, 9 W. 170th Street, Topping 2-6560...
...Plans that will be discussed for the Bronx Oollr seum mooting scheduled for Nov...
...The comrades have been busy the put few months laying the foundation for the most vigorous campaign the Bronx ever had...
...Three hundred millions is provided in the "relief" law for housing through loans to limited dividend corporations under state control...
...1 to Dec...
...State Intercollegiate Clubs to Meet Sept...
...Wage reductions continue...
...1(» The New York State Thornai (01 President * Intercollegiate Clubs will meet In conference Sept...
...If there Is the slightest evidence that there will be deficits which may have to be made up out of taxation on wealth, no money win be forthcoming...
...8, a Runts Point meeting and a few large high school meetings...
...If this gap is not speedily bridged, there is no relief in sight...
...Louis Waldman...
...Why not now for the conservation of life...
...Out of a total of $49,711,068, $42,100,380 went to banks, insurance companies and railroads, with $32,990,180 going to the banks alone Two days before the foregoing was published, the press reported that the Interstate Commerce Commission has approved a further loan to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad of 931,625,000, half of which will be used to pay off bond maturities faced by the railroad on March 1, 1933...
...A wage bill of 41 billions in 1929 has declined in 1932 to about one-half...
...Moreover, New York State is the only one prepared to take advantage of the law through its Housing Board which will ask for $100,000,000...
...Several weeks ago, according to the American-Federation of Labor, there were close to 12,000,000 without work in the nation, with 13,000,000 predicted for the winter...
...The Socialist Party in this impalgn will ask the people of ds State to give It a mandate to ansfer the utilities from private i public ownership...
...While banks, railroads, insurance companies and mortgage loan Institutions have been aided, no workers have been added to .the payrolls...
...Moreover, if the sum authorized to be loaned by the R. F. C. were to be spent at onoe, which it will not be, It would not result in restoring more than onefifth of the unemployed to jobs, The R. F. C. Is In fact refusing to make loans unless It can be shown that the project for which the loan is received will be selfsustaining out of rates charged the public...
...It built homes for hundreds of thousands during the war to prosecute the purposes of destruction of human life...
...Socially desirable public improvements, such as schools, hospitals, etc., should be initiated...
...The tenants in the Sbolom Aleichem houses, which they built with their own money and which they formerly owned as a cooperative, had already paid to the landlord more than $1,000 for unemployed tenants when the landlord started to evict them In violation of his agreement not to molest the unemployed if the other tenants would pay half the rents for them...
...The federal government should, have made available for this purpose a sum mounting into the billions...
...In the past three years, the country has undergone the ¦harpeat decline In mass purchasing power in all lta history...
...Here lies a weakness in the bl-party "relief" which comes close to being a betrayal of millions...
...It should be clear that this purchasing power will not result from lending billions to railroads, banks and insurance companies...
...The federal law Is woefully inadequate in another vital respect —the provision of decent housing for the millions who are in dire need of it...
...A report of activities will be rendered by the executive committee...
...The investments of railway bond holders have been guar* an teed while scores of thousands of railway workers are unemployed and further slashes in the pay of' those still working are contemplated...
...While railway bond quotations and those of other enterprises go *ip, while the stork market booms, official figures dealing with Jobs and wages tell a very different story...
...He emphasized the fact thst the Socialists do not regard the new mayor as in any sense a "miracle man," but holds that he shares responsibility with his debonair predecessor for the failures and wastes of the last two administrations...
...The Bronx County Committee schedule for the weekend includes the official opening of the new headquarters at 8 West 170 street at 8:30 Saturday...
...October 8 to 10, by which time it is expected that every Socialist agency, party member, and sympathiser will be enlisted, has been tentatively set at the week tor a concentrated fund-raising...
...Tlioma> will be one of the speakers and pos slbly Waldman and Crosswalthe Harold Luxcmberg of Columbia 1chairman and Monroe Bweotland ot Syracuse vice chairman...
...Already agents for the Relief Bureau, In view of the protests made, have stopped their discrimination The Bronx Tenants' Emergency League and the Socialist Party will battle with the tenants to the end...
...At this rate it would take about $,000 years to rehouse the 4,000,000 persons now Inadequately boused In New York State...
...Here is a striking illustration of the gap between the value of what is produced and what the producers receive in wages, which Is the basic reason for depressions...
...On the other side Is Louis Kiosk, the landlord, backed by large mortgage companies and by one of the most powerful banks In the country...
...About 40 delegates from about 20 different colleges will be present...
...A conference of labor, progressive and fraternal organisations will b held Monday at 8:30 P. If...
...The result is delay and procrastination when the utmost haste is needed if further catastrophe is to be averted...
...The celebration will give vent to the holiday spirit that prevails among the membership...
...This is an almost futile gesture in the face of the slum conditions that prevail throughout the land...
...If necessary, the federal government should assume direct responsibility...
...The Bronx Tenants' Emergency League, created by the Socialist Party of Bronx County to assist working people in keeping roofs over their heads, has been fighting by the slds of the rent strikers since the beginning...
...ALL OF WHICH IS ONLY ADDITIONAL PROOF OF THE BASIC IDENTITY OP THE OLD PARTY CANDIDATES AND THEIR PARTIES...
...While working' throughout the nation through the malls, at dinners, at meetings where collection efforts will receive mors attention than In the past, and, by- personal solicitation by committees in every community, a week wilt be set aside whan the raising ot funds will be given primary consideration...
...He, pointed out that the budget director's duties required the elimination of unnecessary jobs and expenses, which were directly In conflict with the interests of any district- leader, whose business It Is to provide patronage and Jobs...
...Because of the mutual cultural Interests of the tenants, the houses—even now at the height of the depression—are 00 per cent occupied...
...On one tide arc the 111 tenants included in their number many pain tars, sculptors and writers whose works are close to the hearts of millions of Jewish people...
...The activity of the R. F. C. Is • powerful confirmation of the Socialist thesis that government functions essentially as the representative of the dominant form *f property, regardless of the consequences to the masses of the itople...
...On Sunday at 3 p. m., a membership meeting of all Bronx members will be held at headquarters...
...Saving On the Workers In striking contrast to the generosity Of the R. F. C. to bankers, railroad magnates and insurance companies is the niggardly grant of the State of Wisconsin of three millions, somewhat less than half of the state's estimated need for the relief of Its unemployed from Sept...
...The Socialist Party national platform provides for not less than five billions for such construction...
...Dancing and refreshments are on the program...
...Socialist Housing Program Urged (Continued from P&f• Tlirrri marks to Mayor Mc.Kee, over Station WEVD Tuesday, Comrade Waldman demanded the Immediate resignation of Budget Director Rohler on the ground that no district leader of the party In power should be qualified to hold this office...
...The topic* to be discussed will be the running of the campaign and permanent organization after the campaign...
...A committee of outstanding engineers estimates, however, that well over 2 billions of dollars of construction projects have been discontinued because of shortage of funds...
...It Is difficult to see how this kind of activity can provide Jobs or expand payrolls...
...Now the line* are tightly drawn...
...in fact, when the country was climbing towards the dixsy heights of so-called prosperity...
...the branches and district campaign committees have been working throughout the summer...
...Comrades Olaessens and DeWltt will be present to ensure an evening of entertainment...
...Governor Roosevelt In New York State has met the challenge of the slum through limited dividend corporations, with the result that In the six years that have elapsed since the enactment of the present housing law homes have been provided for some 7,000 persons...
...speak...
...DBOLAJUNG that the Morgancontrolled Consolidated Gas Company, owner of virtually all the common stock of the four companies monopolising the electric light and power service in New York City, paid 12,600,000 more in dividends in 1081, ths second year of the depression, than it did in 1029 and 1980, largely at the expense of the small consumer, Louis Waldman announced that the Socialist Party is preparing to take up with the Public Series Commission the necessity for n Immediate downward revision •f the New York City light and ower rates...
...This condition of exploitation Inheres In the very nature of capttanam...
Vol. 14 • September 1931 • No. 11
