The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-29
Building the Daily Worker Into
a Mass Organ
By ROBERT WOODS.


N analysis of the results of the present
IA Party Recruiting Drive, brings sharply
to our attention, the fact that our Party as
whole still greatly underestimate the role of
our central organ, the Daily Worker. The dis
proportion between the number of new men,
bers recruited and the number of Daily Worker
subs secured, is an indication of our failure to
utilize the Daily Worker for its real purpose,
namely as a collective agtator, propagandist
and organizer.
AS the mouthpiece of the Party, the Daily
Worker must reach and be rooted among the
large masses of workers. The number Of its
readers should be several times that of the
Party membership. At the present time, how
ever it hardly exceeds the number of Party
members. This accounts to great extent for
one of the Daily Workers main shortcomings,
insufficient workers correspondence, which is
essential to a mass organ that must sense and
respond quickly to all local conditions OF the
workers and incidents in the class struggle.
New Methods of Distribution.
1t is clear that our old methods of building
the Daily Worker are insufficient and will
never accomplish our purpose. We Will only
be able to reach very limited number OF
workers thru subscriptions. The widespread
unemployment, the ever lowering of the stand
ard of living of the workers renders it impos-
sible for most of them to pay $780, $3.50 or
even $500 in lump sum. This must, of course,
not prevent those workers from reading the
Daily Worker.
Determined to spread our organ among the
masses of auto workers, District No. Z has
launched campaign to increase the circula-
ton of the Daily Worker in the District mani
fold, by the end of the Recruiting Drive. This
was accomplished quite successfully by putting
the following plan, after a thoro discussion
in the Party units into operation.
Each unit received 2 copies of the Daily
Worker per member, unit of 10 members
receives 20 copies, unit of Is members, 30
copies, etc. A comrade is elected for each day
between unit meetings, to distribute the paper.
The unit Daily Worker agent is responsible
to see what distribution is carried on uninter
ruptedly. The Daily is delivered from house
to house in working class neighborhood the
same houses being covered for one week. Two
comrades visit the houses at the end Of the
week and solicit subs or delivery for weekly
payment. Those that refuse to take the paper
are left out in the following weeks distribution,
when the paper is delivered to as many new
places as dropped out from the previous week.
Each unit is assigned a section which it must
thoroughly canvass in the above manner. Until
sufficient number of regular readers has been
secured, so that the distribution pays for itself,
the unit must pay for the Daily Workers which
amounts to not more than a penny day per
member.
Plan Is Successful.
Results have proved the plan to be very
successful. AS many IL regular readers.
have been secured after one weeks distribution
by unit taking 30 copies day. Several subs
have already been secured by this method. As
the result of distribution in Negro neighbor-
hood, one unit has made several contacts with
Negro workers and organized very successful
meeting. Another comrade recruited 3 new
members into the Party, while visiting the
houses where the Daily Worker has been deliv-
cred. Unlimited possibilities for work present
themselves through this distribution PLAN 1t
is real effective means of exposing and up
roofing such right tendencies as passivty and
underestimation of the degree of rehabilitation.
The eagerness with which the workers receive
our organ (somc looking through the window,
waiting for the comrade that delivers the
paper demonstrates their readiness to follow
the leadership of the Communist Party.
With the efforts of the bosses and 'their
government to suppress the rising militancy of
the proletariat growing ever more brutal and
sharp, we may expect at Gny time TO the
Daily Worker barred from the mail or our
Party driven under ground. This Daily Work
err distribution plan, creating a sense of Boil
shevik responsibility among the Party men,
bers, stimulating them to more intense activity,
is laying the basis for a we'll functioning
machinery that will be able to cope with such
state of illegality. 1t also bears out in very
clear manner the correctness of Comrade Len
ms words, when he said that the Party organ
is not only collective agitator and propaganda
list, but also collective organizer. 1t trains
those comrades engaged in this distribution,