The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-10-13
OWENS SPEAKS
OF PROBLEMS OF
negro WORKERS
Outlines the Position of
Workers Party
(contInued from page y

N0N~@~~@~N@~N~
WORKER from the newsies. Peo-
pie on their to the meeting were
greeted by others coming in the op-
posite direction reading and talking
about the Communist daily.
swabeek Opens Meeting.
Arne Swabeck, district organizer of
The party, called the meeting to or
der Comrade Swabeck briefly intro
duced to the crowd the chairman Of
the meeting, William f. Dunno, Com
munist candidate for governor Of Illi-
nois, who has recently returned from
the sessions of the Fifth Congress of
the Third international at Moscow, to
which he was a delegate.
Comrade Dunno made short intro
Iiuctory speech striking the keynote
of the afternoons rally. Then came
musical selections by the Freiheit
singing society.
Owens Speaks On Negro Question.
Gordon Owens, Negro candidate for
congress in the first congressional
district In a short speech outlined the
party program on the Negro question,
He told the Negro workers present
that the real cause for race discrim-
nation is economic; that the real
issue is a class issue and not a race
issue. He said that the Workers
Party is the only political party that
stands for the recognition of the Ne
gro race on an absolute equal footing
with all emancipated workers of the
world.
Stress Need to Read.
The necessity Of supporting the
DAILY WORKER, the Workers
Monthly, and other literature of the
party was stressed by Comrade Dunno
who urged all militant workers to
take active part in the drive for sub
scriptions for the DAILY WORKER,
TO be carried thru during the fall and
winter.
Next on the program was the or
chestra Of the Young Workers
League which rendered revolutionary
selections in which the audience
aoined.
Owens Given Ovation.
a tremendous ovation greeted the
appearance on thu platform Of Gordon
Owens, a colored comrade, who is
running for congressman from the
frat congressional district. For fully
1--WE iainntes after Owens had been
announced, the cheers and shouts of
an enthusiastic audience prevented
him from speaking.
Comrade Owens spoke Of the twelve
million Negroes in the United States,
who present to revolutionists u prob
lem that is complex in the extreme.
"The great majority of the Negroes
are proletarians, but thru the insidi-
Gus influence of the schools, the press,
and false leaders, both black and
white, they have been prevented from
becoming class conscious" said
Owens. Even some Of their most in
fiuential leaders teach them to look
on the Negro problem as a race prob
lem, rather than as the class prob
lem that it really is.
To-day all this is changing. The
Negroes are leaving the capitalist
parties by the hundreds and coming
into the Communist ranks. They are
beginning to understand that their
real enemy is the capitalist, both the
black and the white capitalist, and
that their real task is the overthrow
ing of the capitalist system with it's
law Of hunger, war and death"
A thunderous burst of applause
greeted the announcement that Rob-
ert Minor, one of the party's best
known cartoonists, writer's and speak
ers, was to address the rally.
Building BoIsheviks-the D.