The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-05-25
P1OletaylQn Mutur
Benefit Society
COuUeneS
By MAX BEDACHT.

IN few days the International Workers Order
will have its national convention. This pro-
letarian mutual benefit society has established
itself firmly in its one year of existence It
u now fairly on the way to become what its
naNae implies international in composition and
international in theology, proletarian in COM
position and proletarian in aim.
A real international proetaran mutual bene-
fit organization is an absolute necessity in the
United States The capitalist interests of the
United States have Steadfastly defeated every
effort to establish social insurance. While it
is necessary that the workers continue and in
crease their struggle for the establishment of
social insurance they are also forced to create
through mutual support that indispensable help
which the capitalist state refuses them.
The capitalist class exploits this circumstance
for itself Proletarian mutual benefit societies
should really be monuments of shame to CAPT
talism which denies support to workers in need
although its whole system depends upon these
very workers Proletarian mutual benefit So
cieties should also be organizations which or
ganize and support the struggle for social in
surance. Finally, proletarian mutual benefit So
cieties by their very necessity of existence should
demonstrate and fill the need for united prole-
tartan action.
tunately, with the exception of the Interna-
tional Workers Order of course, present an en-
tirely different picture. In these organizations
capitalist leadership succeeded in covering with
mantles of patriotism and of mysticism the
obvious purposes of proetaran mutual support
in the face of the capitalist efforts to starve
the workers. Most existing mutual benefit So
cieties, though Overwhelmingly proletarian in com
position, are not monuments of shame to CAPT
talism, but towers of it strength. Though built
on the need for mutual support because of the
refusal of support by the capitalist state, the
bourgeois leadership makes these organizations
supporters of the capitalist state The various
mutual benefit societies composed of foreign
born workers of specific nationalites are made
by their bourgeois leaders into auxiliaries of
their fascist or semi-fascist home governments.
Instead of defending the interests of its mem
bers, these members are misused to follow the
dictates of their respective national embassies
or consulates. The American mutual benefit
societies, such as the Eagles Elks, Odd Fellows,
are lighthouses of democratic illusions and are
incubators of patriotic poison In these organ
izations the bosses and the upper strata of the
working class rub shoulders and feed the lu-
sion of equality, with the help of mystic rituals
and other poisonous nonsense the proletarian
membership of these organizations is blinded to
the fact that after all they are forced to spend
their money through these organizations because
the capitalist state refuses them help in case
of sickness or death, that is just when they or
their families need it most.
The International Workers Order rejects all
mystic nonsense and combats all patriotic poison.
1t bases itself openly on the necessity of the
working class to band together for mutual help
and for united struggle for social insurance.
1t proclaims openly that the purpose of its
organization is not to bring all the South
Slavic or the Negroes or the Finnish or the
Jewish workers into one organization to feed
nationalsm, but to bring all workers irrespective
of nationality and color together to feed their
stomachs in time Of need and to fight together
for their interests. The International Workers
Order aims to build up proletarian mutual
benefit society in which all workers, white and
black, native or foreign born pool their strength
for mutual support as well as for united defense
of their interests
At the same time the International Workers
Order recognizes the language difficulties of
foreign born workers and the necessity to make
possible for every worker intimate participation
in the life of the order. For this reason its
organizational structure provides for language
groupings with foreign language correspondence,
agitational material and even language organs
and the utmost language autonomy compatible
with the necessary organizationa Capitalization,
The coming convention Of the International