The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-25
Haiti's Road to Freedom

"a preliminary survey have just concluded,
dealing with 700 workers on 20 sugar and
cocoa estates reveals the workers are aged at
3d. with marked heart and blood pressure de-
terioration, and by 40 they are handicapped
severely, with their expectation of life short
ened."
Prof Seagar with cautious look towards
the Rockefeller endowment, recommends that
something be done about this as ."diet and
fatigue are points affecting the willingness to
work, which must influence the cost of pro-
duction Of sugar.
The worthy professor tries to infer that the
miserable lives of the West Indian Negro work
ers is due especially to "the extensive use of
timed milk" and he recommends the keeping
OF goats" What the goats are to~lve on, if
the workers themselves are compelled to use
timed milk because of poverty, the worthy
professor saith not.
AS aforementioned every letter from the
humble people of Haiti shows that similar
condition prevails in Haiti as in the rest of
the West Indies. If we would consider this
abyss of mass starvation as the first thing
to receive our attention we will have to express
our amazement at the course taken by the
liberation movement in Haiti
ment received it's initial spirit by the strike
of the students and, without at all underestim-
atng the great value that the student ele-
ments play as an assisting body to the work.
ers and peasants in national revolutionary
movements yet it must be said that it is ex-
trenely unwise to look to the students or other
intellectual categories for sound leadership in
genuine revolutionary movement. Such lead
ership, all history of this age conclusively
proves, can be found, in its majority, only in
the ranks of actual toilers
Not long since, some elements in Haiti form
ed Workers Party and issued public state
ments on the terrible conditions of both the
workers and peasants of Haiti. Undoubtedly,
in spite of all its isolation this movement has
been touched by the worldwide slogan of
Workers and Peasants Government But if
those who hold in esteem such Workers and
Peasants Government as now occupies the
great Land of the Soviets, wish to alter social
conditions in the same direction. they must not
be carried away by trifling differences from
learning the lesson Of inst how the workers
and peasants of the Soviet Union came to
power.
In Haiti the students unquestonably have
more than enough reason to strike against the
corrupt, grating autocracy of Mr.. Freeman,
an American imperialist who has been imposed
on the country as educational director at the
rather fine salary of $4,000 a year. But
while thousands and tens of thousands of
humble Haitian peasants and workers are lit
orally starving to death, the basic cause Of
COMPLAINT is this mass starvation and not
as the students seem to judge the fact that,
while Freeman receives such|a magnificent
salary, "no Haitian in public education is
getting over $3.50 MONTH" nor can it be the
duty of a revolutionary movement to worry
itself over the fact that "even the secretary
Of state has no more than "paltry" $500 a
month, compared to Mr.. Freeman's $S33.33
Such complaints, while they may be impress
sive as proving beyond allsquestion the rot
tenness of American imperialism's rule, GER
tainly are not the kind to put before the masses