The daily worker., 1929-04-15

Harlem. The capitalist caste syste
into Jim-crow districts makes these
special prey of the greedy rent-goug
real estate agents take advantage of<
this segregation to squeeze the last
nickel out of the Negro workers who
are penned into "the black ghetto" "
Rents in Negro Harlem are al
ready often double and sometimes
treble those in other sections Of the
city. The landlords refuse to make
repairs, causing the most vile and
unsanitary conditions to exist. Over
crowding is rife and degrading So
cial practices are forced upon these
black toilers who are hemmed in
and ground down under this vicious
system of capitalist landlordism.
Death and Degradation.
Vainly do these workers pinch
and stint and contrive to meet these
impossible rents which rise con-
stantly ever higher and higher. The
death-rate tells something of the
terrible and CHASTITY story of this
segregation and exploitation. Negro
workers die more than twice as fast
from consumption and certain other
diseases; black babies perish at over
twice the rate of babies in other
sections of the city.
Still rents mount, higher and
higher! Yet the wages of Negro
workers are the lowest and their
chance to get a job of any sort the
poorest. The last to be hired and
the first to be fired, they are the
greatest sufferers from the present
/ widespread unemployment. They
are heaviest hit, too, by the wage
cuts which the employers have been
constantly handing out to the work
ers as the reward for their supreme
sacrifice" in the last world war and
as their present share for the COM
ing world slaughter which the pro-
fit gougers are preparing for the
workers of all races.
Wages and Rents.
Today the average wage of
Negro workers in New York city is
between $500 and $4,000 a week
Many women have to support farai-
lies left fatherless by the war ''to
make the world safe for democracy"
the democracy of the rent and pre-
fit-gougers. They have to leave their
children on the street or with neigh
bors or in beastly day nurseries
while they toll cooking, scrubbing,
cleaning other peoples houses, and
caring for the children of the op-
pressors, ten and twelve hours day,
seven days week, for $1,000, $1,000,
$1,000!
Out of these wages they have to
meet the ruthless rent squeezers who
demand $4,000 and $4,000 a month
for and room flats without heat,
often without hot water or baths,
with ceilings coming down and walls
falling apart, noisy dumps unfit for
human habitation.
For the "better class" apartments,
with steam heat and hot water now
and then, the fat landlords, pillars
of the church and respected citizens
of capitalist society, demand $4,000
for and 2 rooms, $4500, $4,000,
$4,000 for 8 and 4 rooms, TOGO,
$4,000, and $4,000 for A, and 6
rooms, and SO up the scale. A vici
Gus and crushing circle of exploita-
ton and oppression!
More Raises Soon.
last December, following the ex-
piration of the rent laws, which
were only introduced on mass pres
sure from the tenants, for apart
ments renting between $1,000 and
$500 per room per month, the
landlords Immediately set to work.
Raises ranging from $500 to as high
as $500, were handed out whole
sale and dispossesses served upon
thousands of families.
But this is nothing to what is
coming when these laws expire for
the poorest class and for all tenants
at the end of next month. More rent
raises and dispossesses will follow.
Mass Pressure Needed.
Only the united, organized, mass
pressure of the tenants and workers,
will avail in the least to stem this
eide of rent profiteering. Only this