The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-30
Crisis Grows Severest
in u. S. i'm so Years

try ever experienced by the working
class for the past fifty years!
Every optimistic pronouncement
in the capitalist press is fake
There is not single fact that prom
Uses an immediate alienation of the
deep-going crisis.
In their diplomatic, vague Ian
guage, the more open capitalist
papers see chaos ahead for Ameri-
can capitalist economy. Says the
Annalist (Dec. 27):
''As to the business outlook
after the opening of the new year,
it seems pretty evident to the
realist that some additional in
fluences of a repressive charac-
ter will make themselves felt"
More crisis, more unemplOy
ment, more wage cuts this means.
Still further the Annalist says:
Another, and probably more
powerful depressing influence, is
the coming effect on speculative
confidence of the much lower cor
porate earnings which will begin
to be announced next month, rep
representing the effects of the
current fairly severe depression
in business"
The vicious circle of capitalist
crisis makes the Hoover-Green-
Lovestone cry of nothing wrong
with the fundamental structure of
American imperialist economy"
sound like the bofuddled mumbling
of opium eaters.
In the Dec. 20 issue, the ANAL
list gives about the clearest picture
of the present economic crash that
has yet come from a capitalist
spokesman:
THE outstanding fact of the
business situation is the de-
crease in activity which has al
feady occurred. This decrease
stands, moreover, as the great
est which has occurred in any one
month in the entire postwar per-
iod; and in all probability it rep
resents the most severe decline
in business activity that has oc-
Cured in any one month in the
last half century, with the ex-
ception of those which occurred
in the years 1898 and 1907
Only twice in fifty years, says
this organ of imperialism, has U. s..
capitalism suffered such a severe
slump as it is now undergoing
and it has Just entered on the brink
of this crisis! This crisis Cannot be
set aside as likely to be temporary
and inconsequential," warns the An
nalist to it's capitalist readers.
We pointed out before that all
basic industries were severely hit,
with unemployment in the steel in
dustry at about so per cent of the
total workers usually employed. In
some plants the entire working
force is out.
Another capitalist barometer of
the sharp crash in the productive
machinery is the use of electric
power. And the New York Times
(Dec. 29) adds this fact among the
thousands proving the severity Of
the present crisis;
In the Middle West however,
throughout the greater part of
the region between the Alleghan-
les and the Missouri River, a sharp
decline in industrial production ap-
pears to have taken place. While
this is especially pronounced in
the steel and allied products and
automobile centres, the decrease
in the use of industrial power
would seem to indicate the extern
sion of curtailment into many
other lines of heavy manufacture
er. The Rocky Mountain region
showed further drop in the out
put of electricity below the
amount used the year before, re-
fleeing an increased curtailment
in mining and smelling"
Ano her bourgeois financial
writer crisply sums up the main
features of the present crisis by
pointing out that: "Steel produc-
ton is almost down to 40 per cent
of capacity; bank clearings are less
than even in 1927, and railway net
earnings are "a per cent below
1925"
On top of this, wires from the
Federal Reserve Banks show: TEX
tiles are sub-normal, according to
New England reports, while trade
is especially light in the southwest
and in the st. Louis districts. Fac
tory production has been cut sharp
ly in st. Louis"
Mayor Miller in st. Louis has
been forced to take up the unem-
ployment problem unemployment
indeed must be severe when capi-
talist mayor takes note of it! As
in Detroit, the mayor is Studying"
the question.
The Federal Reserve board re-
ports still further indications of
crisis. Debts to individual ac-
counts in banks dropped "a per cent
below the total reported for the
preceding week and Ia per cent be-
low the total Of last year. To the
propagandists cs prosperity, facts
4 u