Wide Response Greets SDF Drive To Clear Slums
Wide Response Greets SDF Drive To Clear Slums WASgWjBTOMri>/C. — Gratification is expressed here by Leo Mekzer, national secretary of the Social Democratic Federation of the United States, over...
...Units and members have been notified of the need for funds to put over this important drive, and every member is urged to "give until it hurts...
...Coleman has also indicated his willingness to address one or more of the local conferences that will be arranged...
...During the past seven years, the introduction and use of labor-displacing machinery have been greater than during any like period in history...
...There is no place in modern industry for the young people whose advent number more than a million a year...
...Machinery has in some instances dispensed entirely with human labor, thereby destroying the purchasing power of the outcast workers and at the same time the market for the products of the machine...
...It is a matter of"logical', deduction that the present process of elhrririarSafc labor by mechanical devices and "robots** wwi cause the human factor to become eventually one of insignificance in the production of wealth...
...A Labor Program to Beat Machinery, Unemployment A government commission appointed to investigate the effects of machinery on labor in the automobile industry reported that since 1929...
...Machinery and new methods have invaded every department of human activity, dispensing with human skill and human energy...
...and adults who are now past the deadline of 40...
...New York accepted its quota of $2,000 the previous week...
...The National Office, therefore, urges its affiliated units to proceed with the work of financial contributions without delay...
...Conceding that it requires some of the displaced workers or their equivalent to produce the machine, these represent only a minor part of the outcast workers...
...This we witnessed during the depression when great factories filled with wonderful machines stood idle and silent, becoming obsolete in character and deteriorating in value...
...v Claims and arguments have often been made that machinery creates jobs and a demand Tor labor—notwithstanding incontrovertible evidence of a chronic unemployed army, ranging from 5.000.000 to 15,000,000 in this nation, from the best to the worst of times...
...The National Office is also preparing an S.D.F...
...Machines do not need food,, raiment, and only to a limited extent, shefter...
...Wide Response Greets SDF Drive To Clear Slums WASgWjBTOMri>/C...
...Housing Bulletin suitable for distribution either at the local conferences or at other gatherings...
...This change has affected all lines of industrial activity, even to the farm...
...It is expected to be about ten pages with a number of illustrations...
...Gratification is expressed here by Leo Mekzer, national secretary of the Social Democratic Federation of the United States, over the re-sepnses being received to the national campaign for slum clearance and a housing drive to provide jobs' for the jobless...
...in Los Angeles, Cleveland and Chicago...
...The former Iowa Agricultural Secretary and now Assistant Emergency Relief Administrator, declared that mechanization of farming operations has eliminted to a large extent the horse, the hired man, and manual labor, and that the outcast workers now constitute the thousands of persons on relief, who will never again be required on the farm...
...This concrete, ladllW" evidence cannot be refuted by vapid and ¦n^iinfe chatter...
...The machine itself, not consuming its own product, engenders industrial paralysis and stagnation...
...During the past week, the National Office quota assignments in the campaign for $10,000 to carry on the slum clearance agitation and organize the local conferences have been accepted by local organizations of the S.D.F...
...Among otter organizations agreeing to cooperate Li this program is the National Association of Housing Officials, which has ap-' pointed its director, Mr...
...With the industrial depression sinking to a new low the past week, this nation-wide housing and slum clearance drive assumes increasing importane...
...Among the members of the Board of Governors of this organization is Nathan Straus, Administrator of the United States Housing Authority...
...JShe machine is now the principal factor in the production of all forms of wealth, but it does not provide the market for its own products, as in the case of labor...
...Coleman Woodbury,.to reprtsent it in acting with the S.D.F...
...Consequently, their use tends to destroy the tae-cessity for their own existence...
...There is only a restricted demand •fifrZ their products...
...The millions of unemployed who need the necessities of life have.no purchasing-power...
...30'/r of the labor costs had been eliminated, resulting in the displacement of many thousands of skilled workers and the cheapening of the automobile...
Vol. 21 • May 1938 • No. 21
