The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-03
Capitalist Press Admits the Crisis
Will Grow Worse This Winter
BY BURCK

some juggling of figures and chart making one
of the writer's of the Post has predicted that
the normal" of employment will not be reached
again until 1888. in 1920 after reaching the
low point it required twenty months to work
back to normal" writes N. J. Kuehls "if the
same angle is applied and assuming that Au-
gust will be the low point Of the depression, we
could not expect employment to get back to
normal before the spring or summer Of 1888"
But suppose the low point OF the present crisis
is not August but some month few months
hence, or suppose that the recovery from the
present crisis IT, as, and when it comes, is more
prolonged than in 1920, then the jobless workers
can look forward to perhaps two years more of
misery and starvation and disease for their fam
lilies and themselves.
To the calm predictions of the capitalist press
of unemployment for two years more the work
ing class must answer with a mighty demand
for immediate relief and unemployment insur-
ance that will shake little at the very structure
Of this capitalist slave driving system that can
no longer guarantee even life to the working
masses that it exploits
If we go from industry proper to agriculture
we find the same or even worse perspectives Of
a deepening Of the crisis. Due to the curtail-
ment of the market during the past several
years by the worsening of the workers standard
OF living while production has continued to ex-
pand there is said to be sufficient wheat in
the world to supply twelve months without rails
ing normal CROP" writes the Post. If no
wheat were planted for year there would still
be enough to feed the masses Of the world for
that period In the midst Of this flood of wheat
that Is choking the granaries, the elevators, the
terminal warehouses, millions are doomed to
hunger in the capitalist. countries and in the
colonies result of the economic crisis.
AS result Of this flood OF wheat while the
masses cannot consume 1t prices are practic-
ally the lowest in the history Of the world, with
stocks the largest known, while wheat prices are
below the cost of production. The present
prices of wheat all things considered are the
lowest in history. At no time in the record
OF wheat trading has there been situation like
the present" These record stocks and record
low prices mean record misery for the farmers,
unparalleled bankruptcies, and foreclosures for
taxes These mountainous stocks of wheat mean
hunger for the very farmer who has produced
them and even greater exploitation by the bank
ers and the agents Of the capitalist class.
In a further step in its policy Of stupid de-
magogy the Farm Board has traded off some
wheat for some of the coffee OF Brazil which
too is piled in unused mountain heaps The
Farm Board has got rid Of 25,o00000 bushels
Of its wheat and the Brazilian coffee growers
have got rid of 1,o5o,ooo bags OF coffee One
solve the crisis by this bartering-the masses
in the United States will be able to purchase
just as little coffee and flour as before, will
the poor farmers and the workers of Brazil. The
situation is not one whit different from what it
would be if the coffee now owned by the
Federal Farm Board would remain in Brazil and
the wheat owned by the Brazilian coffee growers
would remain in Chicago duly labeled as to
ownership, etc. Insofar as this wheat may actu-
ally be a change in the source Of Brazilian pur-
chases 1t means sharp cutting of the market
for Argentinian wheat and for American flour
in Brazil The disposal Of part Of the stocks
of the Farm Board thru barter will not change
the crisis in agriculture one bit for the better
while it will sharpen the antagonisms among the
wheat producing countries
The same crisis conditions mold true III cot
ton Here tho there is the factor that the
growth Of cotton under the conditions that are
imposed in capitalist America has been. affected
to such an extent that the quality of the do
nestle crop has been steadily debased
The conditions of production of cotton in cap
italist America are such that the debased pro-
duct has found it increasingly difficult to meet