The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-14
6 Hungry Children and
$15,OOO,OOO Cathedral
Is New York Contrast
By J. LOUIS ENcDAHL.

TODAY New York City offers another one of those many
startling contrasts that we'll to the surface the
teeming lives of it's millions
Downtown the family of the dead Vincenzo castigioni
sits about the coffin Of the father killed in building ac-
cdent There is the widow with six children another
baby coming in February They had Is to
get something to eat and they don't know where the money
is coming from to pay the undertaken.
Uptown, where the lights shine brighter the episcopal
bishop of New York. William T. Manning smugIy directs
campaign raise $15OOo0oO that will be spent to build
other gorgeous religious structure the Cathedral Of ST John
the Divine.
New Yorls millions of workers. kept going endessIy on
the teadm of capitalist exploitation will give little heed to
this contrast; the tragedy in Little Italy" the ambitious
schemes of one of religions most repuIsive harots.
The thing that should startIe New Yorks workers. how
is the fact that organized abors offcaIdom allied
the side of the astocratic eccesiast with
dead carpenters family Instead of resenng conditions
that suddenly pauperze whole family, the official labor
regime takes its place with the church, of the powerful
pillars uphodng the capitalist social structure For this they
receive the blessing of heavens Amounted prince EARTH
The blessings may fall the heads of the labor fakers but
no bread comes to the mouths of the starving Castgons
1t is significant that Mannings $15000000 cathedral,
monument to the black reaction of the nations metropolis
is not only endorsed by the Building Trades Council but also
by the Central Trades and Labor Assembly, That makes its
unanimous except for the United Hebrew Trades Cahan
sman and Kaufman could doubt be persuaded without
much difficulty to join hands with the Coughins Qunns
and Youngs. Reaction is all of one stripe.
Just now official labor is making pretenses to opposition
against child labor But the church is one of the most
powerful combating any take chill
dren of the factories, the mills and the mines.
The Casgon children because of the tragedy that has
overaken Them will be pushed into the nations great indus
stra machine, while the episcopal bishop and the labor
leaders will look and praise the benecen institutions of
100 per Americansm.
In life the castglion family with the wages paid the
father had hardly enough for the meager necessities OF life
Then green concrete floor dropped the bread winner
eight STORIES in of the citys latest sky scrapers and
buried him under of broken stone Hunger began inn
medateIy knocking another door Prince ST.
All these things the CastgIioni children will remember
they grow up. They will not be drawn toward Mannngs
cathedral any other church edfice They will be of the
100000 boys and girls this country who reject all e
gious mummery These children, they grow up viii! be-
part that section of the working class that will make
the labor allies of bishops and other princes OF the
church reaction. They will develop into mitants who will
in time turn the Communist movement that alone makes
war upon capitalist state breeding the startling contrasts
of the $4,000 900 cathedraIs and hungry children.