The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-15
STARVE OR FIGHT!
A Challenge to the Unemployed

plete humiliation. Heretofore churches and
charities have been loud in their advertise
ments of the money they raise for these pur-
poses, and appeals and lists of donors have
been spread over the pages of the capitalist
press. The very employers whose huge sal
aries and dividends, have been ground out of
the labor of the jobless-and starving come to
the front in these drives as the beliefactors
of the unemployed. A recent example is that
of Henry Ford's former partner, Senator
Couzens, who, anticipating the crisis of 1929
&c. was able to contribute, out of his accu-
INFLATED dividends the huge sum of 100000
"for the relief of Detroit's unemployed"
But with the policy of the Hoover regime
bent on minimizing the extent of unemploy-
ment, the charities change their tactics while
at the same time they are forced to feed the
victims of capitalisms progressive collapse.
A letter sent out by the Charity Organization
Society of New York under date of February
8, 1880, clearly shows this relationship. Ex-
planning its reasons for private rather than
public appeal at this time it states son ac-
count of the increase in applications due to
unemployment the G. o. S. must raise a
100000 fund unless people are to be allowed
to suffer-" Applications for relief increased
S7.7 per cent in December, 1929, and January,
1880, over applications of the previous Deem
of two methods of appeal. Private appeal
through letters to "a group of responsible,
socially minded persons" or giving the facts
to the public and asking for support from the
press, the pulpit etc. "The first course of
action seemed preferable, if successful" states
the letter from the C. o. S., 'fOr the second
might have bad psychological effect on BUSH
ness" Emphasis mine.)
The fact that the majority of workers in the
United States are unorganized makes it pos
sible for the employing class to pit one work
er against another in the scramble for jobs, to
replace the worker who falls behind in the
production drive with a younger and more
willing pace-setter. More than this, the Amer
lean Federation of Labor is organized to ensure
the best paying jobs and steadiest employ
ment for labor aristocracy, which represents
not the most exploited of the American work
ers but the skilled craftsmen. The result is
a wage division of workers by categories start
ing with the labor of children and youth which
is the lowest paid. The fact that Negroes are
paid less than white workers for the same
job, are worked longer hours and are forced
into the lowest paid and most mental tasks,
exposes them to special discrimination when
Jobs are scarce. The American Federation of
Labor has played directly into the hands of
the white master class in its use of race preju-
dice to divide the workers. Negroes are ex-
Guided from the majority of A. F. of L. unions.
Where they have forced their way into the
unions in spite of barriers, they are discrm-
mated against in the choice of jobs or are
segregated into jim-crow organizations. In
dustres where Negro labor predominates are
practically unorganized-steel, tobacco, trans
port, lumber, mining, and agriculture in the
South. Women workers are also in the lower
wage categories and women are VIGOROUSLY
unorganized.
The defeatist tactics of the A. F. of L. are
also responsible for holding back the political
development of the workers. Practically 80
per cent of American workers vote the re-
publican or democratic ticket and have been
betrayed into believing that relief from capt.
talst exploitation can be won from political
ests. The growing army of destitute and I'M
employed workers will, in its growing despera-
ton, repudate the A. F. of L.. bureaucracy
with its no-strike class collaboration policies.
1t will repudiate the socialists and >liberals
who preach relief through the machinery of
the capitalist government and who compromise
at every turn. A revolutionary leadership
which challenges the theory of reform by sub
mission and substitutes the dynamics of Sc
curing relief through organized struggle is in
the making The working class will support
this revolutionary leadership, industrially and
politically.
Ito Be Continued)