The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-12-07
Bv BEATRICE SISKIND.

COMRADES who have labored against the de-
vastating procedure of endless collections
which have hampered the political development
of the units and have reduced them to dues
and money collecting agencies, greet the New
Dues system that the Political Committee of
the Party has proposed, with enthusiasm. Our
task and perpetual question always was, "How
can we Activize the Unit" This question has
been asked and answered by section commit
tees by Unit Executives, by the leading COM
rades in the district, thru letters, speeches, bull
letins but the unit remains the same mechan-
cal money raising unit. We are swamped IN
collections Our functionaries, instead OF CIV
ing reports and drawing the political signifi-
canoe of the work they are conducting, and
drawing every comrade of the unit into this
work, are so emerged in bookkeeping that they
forget the purpose of their job. And so l
could relate obstacles upon obstacles, but it all
reduces itself to the single trouble and that
is mechanical collections.
1t is necessary to note here the effect that
these collections have on the various groups of
comrades Comrades who ideologlcally
weak cannot find anything in the Party unit
to keep them. Hence they drift away and come
to meetings only seldom. The unit eventually
loses these comrades. New comrades, who
come in from the struggle full of enthusiasm
are soon dsillusioned and become cynical The
old guard stays on and looks for a solution to
make The unit the real political expression and
training ground for the Party work among the
masses. 1t is these few comrades that bear
the double burden of contributing to the limit
to these endless collections, and doing or
jobs that the increasing struggles of the work
ers demand.
Every Party member must do Party work.
of ha
working class and arm itself with a thorough
feminist understanding of the tasks facing
in this present period of intensified class strug
gle and the menace of the war which has al
ready started on the Manchurian border, in
order to work in the factories and shops among
the masses of workers. Our unit must be the
training ground of the vanguard of the work.
ing class This can only be accomplished by
removing the mechanical procedure that exists
in the unit. Each comrade will then feel that
the unit is the foundation of the Party and as
such he must strengthen it.
Let us see concretely how the dues system
will remove the obstacles standing in the way
of our unit development. Let review one
unit meeting and approximate the collections
taken. There are always two or three different
tickets to dances for auxiliary organizations,
some for the Y. C. L.. the Party, ETC., which
means the minimum of 81 for each comrade.
Daily Worker collection for the southern cam
paign-25 cents weeky-Daily Worker sustain
ing funds to so cents weekly, auxiliary or
CARNATIONS 6 or collections) at least 81
apiece, rent for the section headquarters, about
10 cents weekly, section affairs about rs cents
weekly and miscellaneous emergencies about
25 cents per week-total $3.50 weekly Under
the new dues system figuring a wage of
$40 week the member would pay rs cents
o,,1,, Tba do
not earn $40 per week regularly. Those COM
rades who do more than $40 certainly
ought to contribute towards liquidating the
financial difficulty of the Party and to enable
the Party to better conduct the work. Now
if we compare the collection of the maximum of
rs cents weekly in an orderly and systematic
manner to the collection of over So in chaotic
and dsorganized manner we can easily see
which would benefit the unit and which would
he BIZ lful to its life
Under the New Dues System, the ,unit
H L