Workers Pushed to Lower Levels by Increasingly Grave Industrial Crisis
Workers Pushed to Lower Levels by Increasingly Grave Industrial Crisis HOOVER the "Miracle Man" took over the governing machine in March, 1929. He will turn it over to Roosevelt in March, 1933....
...One gets the impression of capitalist society as a number of layers...
...Millions of dollars were contributed by our ruling Babbitts to these organizations but these rackets finally petered out as the funds declined...
...It is these workers down in the abyss whose fighting spirit is essential to an effective challenge of the ruling classes and their rotting capitalist system...
...During the post-war period hundreds of "patriotic" organizations appeared that put the fear of God into the hearts of big capitalists and bankers...
...We are entitled to answers to these questions...
...It is either one or the other and it is important that it - should be dragged into the open...
...We asked whether this organization is a "racket or an undercover conspiracy...
...The pay of the former group c .eases with the decrease in hours...
...Copies of the issue last week were sent to a selected list of members of the House and Senate at Washington...
...The "Vigilantes" may be a revival of this racket or it may mean something much more dangerous...
...If the curtain were lifted on the whole desolate scene in all the cities, large and small, the thousands of villages and the vast rural areas, what a stew of human misery it would reveal...
...Another layer consists of the small shopkeepers, salesmen, and government employes clinging to uncertain and insufficient incomes...
...Is there any person who believes that Roosevelt and his awkward squad of Democrats will do anything more to face this problem than Hoover and his mediocre Republican squad has...
...Between die two periods the capitalist system has passed from comparative health to chronic sickness that has become worse with each passing month...
...The A. F. of L. report and the D artment of Commerce report bring out the following important fact: although the trend of capitalist enterprise s to make room for some of the jobless by levelling down, this has not checked the increase in the total number of the jobless...
...A little above is the skilled workers, the "white collar" group, and those farmers who still have some small resources...
...A Job Facing Socialists That is to say, millions of human beings are being transformed into proletarians...
...Questions for 'Vigilantes' And Congress to Consider QN this page last week we bared the mysterious work and program of a mysterious organization which styles itself 'The New Vigilantes of America...
...Moreover, by what authority is the "Vigilantes" to act...
...Whether this will be done remains to be seen...
...Is it the might of a military clique which proposes to assume and ezcercise powers ever the rest of us...
...About 82 per cent of these 2,500 firms have adopted this plan...
...From the Department of Commerce at Washington comes another survey based upon replies to a questionnaire sent to 400,000 owners of industries, large and small, in December...
...This racket was designed to scare them with the idea that Moscow was about ready to take over the United States...
...On the contrary, the "all-time peak" of unemployment was reached in November and no reversal of the trend is evident...
...The ruling plug hats at the top also follow policies that level down and that shift the burden of relief upon the backs of those in the layers much below them...
...To the extent that we reach these millions having no stake in the preservation of capitalism will we rise to the duty that confronts us...
...Here again there is no reverse trend: on the contrary, the situation is getting worse and what is happening in New York City it happening in other cities...
...When its literature refers to "reconstructive citizenship" and of the possibility of "punitive measures" we want to know what these upstarts mean...
...The number of "white collar" workers seeking assistance in New York City has more than doubled in the last year...
...To awaken the masses to a knowledge of their power and organize them to fight their patties for relief and emancipation is the doty of the hour...
...More than 13,000,000 meals were provided for destitute men, women and children and lodgings were found for 4,300,000 persons during the first nine months of 1932...
...Hoover could not prevent its collapse and Roosevelt cannot effect its recovery...
...According to the estimate of President Green of the A. F. of L. the number of the unemployed at the end of November was 11,590,000...
...The working class of the nation has been like a patient pack animal whose load has been increased and whose rations have been reduced...
...For more than two years civil employes, aside from the teachers, have coi.tributed $4,000,000 to relief by donating 1 per cent of their pay each month...
...The trend is to level down, to bring workers clinging to a security level down to the millions of unr rtunates facing an insecure living...
...The Sinking Ship of Capitalism That is to say, workers having jobs now work reduced hours to make room of those who have no jobs...
...Their numbers are rapidly increasing and a gulf yawns between them and the ruling minority at the top of this decaying social pyramid...
...Above all, these are smaller and smaller layers ranging from the fairly secure to the small group at the top who are masters of the capitalist system...
...against whom will "punitive measures" be taken and why...
...Who is to be reconstructed and why...
...Of 2,500 replies received the "share-work" plan is reported as having - ^st unanimous approval...
...Each represents the politics of ruling capitalist property interests and they differ little in their plans of passing pills, salves and bandages to hungry and jobless millions...
...Many of them threaten to discontinue their contributions and they are being subjected to official coercion to continue giving...
...The New Leader has performed a distinct service to the masses by making this exposure and urging that Congress investigate the "Vigilantes...
...This number topped the peak figures of last August and is now the highest in our history, It is an "all-time peak" and promises to be exceeded before the end of this year...
...Let's shift the spotlight to the robbCr burg of the Tamniaiiy chieftains, New York City...
...These professional and clerical workers numl>er 28 per cent of those registered as unemployed last November...
...If so, it is a vain hope...
...Another item regarding the sinking capitalist ship...
...Here is the job facing Socialists...
...Recently (hose earning $3,000 or less per year have taken a w«ge reduction...
...The depression is like a flood undermining the intermediate layers while those clinging to those decaying layers fall into the mass misery below...
...At the bottom is an extensive one of unskilled workers and poor farmers...
...From the Children's Bureau at Washington es s report of the charity extended in twenty large cities, not including New York...
...This is only one Corner of the economic hell...
Vol. 15 • January 1933 • No. 3
