The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-03-24

employers. For the oCner CITY
Ioffices two states of the same
character as the leading candi-
dates contend for power.
Whether Daniel or David wins
little is to be gained by the
workers.
Hoan points to his record as mayor
Of Milwaukee for the past eight years
as the Golden Age" of the citys
progress. During these eight years
Hoan boasts that milwaukee has ex-
perienced an increase Of 100000 in
population. The value Of the citys
manufactured products have doubled,
the building operations tripled, and
the city limits expanded by leaps and
bounds"
This boast certainly must sound
good and will undoubtedly win the
whole-hearted approval of Milwaukee
big business. However, Hoan says
nothing about how this Golden Age"
affected the thousands of workers
who toll in the big machine shops,
the tin factories, the steel mills or
the immense tanneries Of the City
of Milwaukee, most of whom are
completely unorganized and work
from nine to ten hours day for the
sum of $50 a week and less.
Daniel w. Hoan claims that dur
ing the period of his administration
property value increased at least
eight-fold. He forgets the fact that
rents increased 100 per cent while
many workers have had their wages
cut since the war. Of course, this
claim shows that Mayor Hoan, and
the Milwaukee Socialist Party, cham
pions the interests of the Milwaukee
property owners and small business
men. He lays no claim to particular
improvement in the conditions of the
workers.
Mayor Hoan enumerates long list
of achievements to strengthen his
claim to the period of the Golden
Age, such as: ownership of riparian
rights along the waterfront, the best
municipal harbor, the finest and most
economical street-lighting system,
low taxes, the finest and most up-to-
date building code and yet he forgets
to mention that the Milwaukee build
ing trades workers are amongst the
lowest paid of such crafts in any city
of the United States. Laborers re-
lceive an average of SOC and
building mechanics receive from Coo
to 85c an hour. He boasts Of the
fine civic celebrations, honesty in
city government, great savings by
putting the city on a real business
fbasis and he lays claim to the finest
and best police and fire departments
, of any city in the United States.
Mayor Hoan even boasts that no
large city has experienced as little
] labor trouble as Milwaukee and this,
while he himself, knows that prac-
/ tically all the large establishments
of the city are working on an "0pen
Shop" basis, with the workers unor-
/ ganized and utterly unable to take up
an aggressive fight against the ex-
plotiers. Yet the Mayor and the So
cialist Party make no mention Of the
need of organizing the unorganized
and have nothing to offer to strength
en- the unions.
The Socialist Party of Milwaukee
, and Mayor Hoan, from what appears
! in their campaign platform, are bliss
; fully unaware of the fact that a class
: struggle goes on in Milwaukee as well
as elsewhere in the country. Or
rather, they are deliberately ignoring
this fact in order to enlist the SYM
pathy of the employers and particulr-
ly, the small businessmen. They are
following the usual trend of the So
cialist Party thruout the country, Of
refusing to carry on a militant strug-
gle to gain an improvement in the
conditions of the toilers. Thus they
are betraying the best interests of
the working class. The platform ad-
vanced by the Socialist Party and
4 Mayor Hoan is a typical example Of
petty-bourgeois class collaboration
schemes with some petty reforms as
bats for votes. The platform con-
tains the usual hypocritical phrase of
the Socialist Party being for indus
trial, as well as political democracy
and then it goes on to enumerate a
number of points as to what the So
cialist Party and Mayor Hoan stand
for, such as; Honesty in public af-
fairs, rights Of workers and liberties
of the people, merit system in APP
lpointments, clean police department,
comprehensive city planning, a dol
lar in service for dollar in taxes,
development Of city public works, ct
cetera, and even the legalization Of
beer and light wines.
What does the Socialist Party and
Mayor Hoan propose to do to elimi-
nate the injunction weapon from the
hands Of the employers? What do
they propose to do to assist the work
ers to raise their standard Of living?
to assist the unions or to assist the
unemployed? either thru the munci.
pality, or by compelling the employ
ers in Milwaukee to care for those
who are out of work? The number
of unemployed in Milwaukee at the
present time amounts to about 5000