The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-02-14
proposals. Of the Workers Unemployment Insurance Delegation
to the Congress Of the u. S. for a
National Unemployment
Insurance Law

problem Its practical policy is to let the work
ers starve, even as 1t does the farmers 1t has
not appropriated q cent for unemployment relief,
although 1t has no difficulty in finding $751;
100000 for tax rebates to already over-rich cor
porations two billions for war purposes and hun
dreds OF millions for various pork barrel approp-
riations. The much advertised $115,000,000 Hoov-
er emergency building program is a fake and
false pretense. The number Of the unemployed
steadily mounts in the face Of such building
programs President Hoover has shown him
self, like his capitalist masters, an alert enemy
OF the working class. He has systematically
underestimate the number of unemployed and
minimized the depth of the crisis; the plain
purposes of this being to confuse the workers, to
prevent them from organizing, to force them
and their families to remain INCREASINGLY in
starvation. His stagger plan Is phase of the
contemplate scheme to throw the burden Of the
industrial crisis upon the shoulders Of the work.
ers by spreading the misery Of unemployment
over the entire working class. HIS no-wage-cut
agreement with the fascist leaders Of the Amer
lean Federation Of Labor was only a smoke
screen behind which widespread wage cutting
and speeding up has taken place His Commit
tee on Unemployment, which is typicaly headed
by Col. Woods, a policeman, is the employers
national board Of strategy to prevent the workers
lief in any other substantial form
Organized Starvation.
The state and local governments, regardless of
which party controls, have shown similar cal
lous attitude to the starving Of the workers.
In socialist" Reading and Milwaukee, equally
little relief is given the unemployed as in demo-
cratic New York or republican Chicago. They
all treat the unemployed workers as beggars or
criminals. Their building programs. heralded as
panaceas for the industrial crisis exist mostly on
paper. Where they do have any reality, they
serve to furnish work for only an insignificant
section Of the workers, mostly the henchmen of
the locally dominant political parties. For every
worker who finds a job at such work. hundred
are being dropped from the factory payrolls be-
cause OF the deepening crisis.
New York City illustrates the outrageous re-
fusal OF the city governments to meet the I'm
employment relief problem When its yearly
budget was proposed recently, it contained ap-
preparations totalling $64o,o0o,0oo "a large por-
ton Of which finds It's way into the pockets of
the Tammany grafters). But there was not a
dime for the 100000 unemployed Of Greater
New York. It was only after the workers staged
a militant demonstration protest during which
several were brutally slugged and arrested in
Mayor Walkers office) that the Board Of Esti-
mates met secretly and allotted 100000, or
about las for each unemployed worker. In De-
troit, banner American city for unemployment
relief, where the workers have made millions for
the bosses, an unemployed worker is allowed
only the miserable pittance Of 20 cents daily.
In most of the cities, no relief measures what
ever, outside the regular miserable charity insti
tutions are in effect.
The various municipalities reduce the unem-
ployment relief problem to charity basis. The
impoverished unemployed worker. who has spent
his entire Life in useful production is degraded
when the capitalist system breaks down, to the
status of pauper. He Is herded in vermin-
infested city flophouses, where he Is treated like
a prisoner. He is made to stand for hours In
breadlnes to get crust OF bread or miserable
bowl Of soup to fend off the encroaching starva-
tion-the great, rich, imperial city of New York
contains no less than 81 of these shameful
breadlines (not to speak Of one for children) in
which 10000 workers daily have to beg their
bread II the unemployed worker. destitute, is
still able to maintain roof over his familys
head, he is forced to approach the local relief
agency as mendcant to beg for financial as
sistance, where he is usually cynically told that
before he will be given even the insignificant re-
lief pittance he will fist have to sell whatever
petty valuables furniture, clothing, etc. that
he may own In all the cities only when actual
starvation is at hand, is even the most niggardly
aid extended
The reactionary leaders Of the A. F. Of L. ac-
lively assist in this slow starvation program.
These fascists are the willing tools Of the en-
ployers for every campaign of strike breaking,
speeding up Of the workers, and for imperialist
aggression. The socialist party follows the same
general line bur more shamefacedly and treach-
erously. Both Of these organizations support the
government terror against the militant unem-
ployed. They are active enemies Of all struggle
for unemployment relief.
The Demand for Unemployment Insurance.
We workers reject with scorn, hatred and in
dignation. this whole contemplate capitalist
charity system and the treacherous labor leaders
terms the despicable breadlnes, Lighthouses,
apple selling and the penny pinching charity
takers and grafterS. With all our power we fight
against this wholesale pauperization Of the
working class. We categorically demand food,
clothing and shelter for the workers and their
families. We refuse to beg and we refuse to
starve. It is not our fault that the bankrupt
capitalist industries are paralyzed. The capt.
talists cannot furnish us with work; they must
pay us wages in the shape Of unemployment
benefits We demand that there be established
national system of unemployment insurance.
And ws call upon the workers to support this
demand with al their invincible power.
All other Important industrial countries, con-
frunted With m ever-growing unemployment,
have been ooenpelled by tho workers. struggles,
to adopt systems OF state unemployment insur-
anee. Only the capitalist United States uses
the outrageous system Of trying to meet this