TIMELY TOPICS
THOMAS, NORMAN
By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS Every week Norraen Thome* write* in hit pungent style lib own comment, upon the salient events of the moment The Detroit Uprising IT was six o'clock on the...
...They deaerved some share of leaderahip for being on the job, but they lost their influence by their own stupid tactics...
...The comrades at Yellow Springs, Ohio, where Antioch College is located, are doing an excellent piece of missionary work in that whole region of Ohio...
...The comrades in Detroit have just started the Detroit Leader...
...Now and then a few scabs went in, always under police protection, sometimes in vans...
...By Norman Thomas TIMELY TOPICS Every week Norraen Thome* write* in hit pungent style lib own comment, upon the salient events of the moment The Detroit Uprising IT was six o'clock on the morning of the first of * February...
...Ford's appeal for sympathy on the ground that his competitors or his enemies, the bankers, were after him waa bunk...
...Inside the factory gates and on the sidewalks were police, probably about ae numerous as the pickets...
...They are doing good work...
...On one side of the street marched the striking workers of the Briggs factory...
...The Party at Work I AM delighted by the way in which Socialist or* ganization is keeping up following the election...
...Under pressure of the strike, of public opinion and some noise by Henry Ford, president Briggs of the body factory had announced that dead time would not be charged to the workers, and some other readjustments made...
...Very wisely the Socialists did not seek to hold meetings in Detroit under their own auspices among the Briggs workers...
...It had plans...
...on the other marched the unemployed with signs beseeching their brethren in the tragic army of the workless not to scab on the Briggs workers...
...On the whole I think the Michigan Socialist movement is taking the prize...
...It is literally true that women were averaging 4 and 5 cents an hour and men 11 cents an hour for the time they put in in the factory...
...These local papers have a distinct field of their own which nothing else can take...
...Ford himself was largely responsible for the condition at the Briggs Company because he demanded from the Briggs Company delivery of bodies at an impossibly low figure...
...AQ his boasted talk of minimum wage scales means nothing because he sees to it that when it is inconvenient to pay those wage scales some nominally independent company does the producing, not Ford, and there the minimum wage scales do not apply...
...He is the power behind the throne in the state capital...
...A cold drizzle was falling in the streets of Detroit...
...Not many went in that morning...
...It had no relief or defense facilities to offer...
...This is what capitalism means in tragic hours like these...
...Not the official organ of the Party— at present we have no official organ—it has nevertheless maintained a loyal Socialist viewpoint and a wide vision of national and international problems...
...Workers had to bear all the loss of dead time...
...Magnificent Spirit The^ spirit of the workers was magnificent...
...Some six thousand were in line and marched together to the city auditorium where Jim Maurer made the principal speech...
...They carried several American flags and homemade signs, rather the worse for the rain...
...Judge Connolly, treasurer of the Briggs Company, ia the Chairman of the Democratic Committee of Wayne County in which Detroit is located...
...Leader #*\NE encouraging sign of life is the growth of " local Socialist papers...
...They had come to a point where for some of them it was actually better to try to get county relief than to work...
...It die* not successfully apply any political pressure either at the State Capital or at the Mayor's office...
...If I had not spoken I should have been denounced for not speaking...
...This is also what old party politics means...
...The New Leader has emphatically justified its position as a leader an elder brother among papers that are springing up...
...At the Mack plant a little later the lines were much larger and the workers much better organized...
...Briggs' disposal nil the police protection at their command...
...It was a pleasure to talk to the men...
...He refused point-blank to meet with any committee of his workers and because of this obdurate refusal the State of Michigan and the City of Detroit, which cannot meet the claims of unemployed workers for decent maintenance, felt obliged to place at Mr...
...In the light of street lsmps and the night lights which still were burning in the factory perhaps a hundred men and women were marching round and round in a great circle...
...Occasionally the one girl in the line would start to sing, but for the most part the pickets marched in silence...
...A Rank and File Strike The strike was a rank and file affair...
...There's a good one in Camden...
...Ill clad most of them were for that weather...
...I spoke to the strikers at the direct request of the local committee and was, of course, denounced by the Communists for doing so...
...The problem will be to finance them without undue strain on Party resources...
...Here at the Mack plant the committee elected by the rank and file workers themselves was strictly on the job...
...I had bigger meetings in Michigan than during tha campagn...
...It had discipline...
...The Nesv...
...But let us frankly acknowledge we are not as yet organized to help as much as we ought...
...It took some help from Communists, at least at first, because they were on the ground...
...If ft had been as well organized at Highland Psrk as at Mack Avenue I think it would have succeeded completely...
...Already the pickets had gathered outside the gates of the Highland Park factory of the Briggs Manufacturing Company, which produces bodies for Ford ears...
...It had no organization ready to help in this vital struggle of the unorganized...
...Plans are under way for an equally impressive demonstration for the benefit of the state legislature at Trenton...
...The highest wage I heard of was $8 a week, and that man was regarded as a kind of a millionaire among the workers...
...Experience shows that no one paper can be the sole and sufficient medium of expression f*r the growing Socialist movement...
...There was booing, but no violence was evident...
...A Ford "Millionaire" They presented evidence of some of the worst wage conditions I have ever heard...
...We must also have, however, our general Socialist papers, and I want to congratulate The New Leader for achieving in these bad times the ripe old age of nine years...
...He was vague what those readjustments were and the workers naturally have no confidence in him...
...He got what he wanted from state and city...
...The strike almost succeeded—indeed it partially succeeded...
...I heard of cases where carfares reduced earnings at the Briggs plant below what men on the relief rolls got The hope of the workers was in a short sharp strike which would tie pp the delivery of bodies to Ford at a time when it was vitally important for him to bill whatever orders he had...
...Certainly it would have succeeded if there had been anything like a normal demand for cars...
...The Briggs plant had maintained a group piece work scheme...
...A special word of praise is also due to the fine work and splendid spirit of the young local at Lansing, Michigan...
...Smaller groups, especially Yipsel papers, often mimeographed, are springing up...
...One of the best pieces of local activity I came across, however,' was at Camden, New Jersey, when last week the Socialists organized a most impressive demonstration of the unemployed...
...The Detroit Federation of Labor denounced Briggs and more or less cheered the strikers on...
...Socialists cooperated on the factory committee and stood by ready to help as much as they could...
...There were plain city police, there were deputy sheriffs, and there were nattily clad state police sent by an obliging GovernoV—Comstock, a Democrat—who had campaigned on the issue of no state police...
Vol. 15 • February 1933 • No. 6
