The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-18
PARTY LIFE
Conducted by the Org. Dept. Central Com
naittee, Communist Party, Q. S. A.
Some Party Achievements in
Unemployed Work
BY VIM. REYNOLDS (Michigan)

WORK among the unemployed is one of the,
]" most basic tasks of the Party. The prob
lens growing out OF unemployment confront
every worker and every organization of workers
In large industrial centers the Unemployed
Council is the means of reaching the great
mass of unorganized workers In smaller com
munities 1t is the logical first step toward or
ganization In the A. F. of l. it is the issue
on which the hold of the bureaucracy is being
broken Unemployed Councils in the process Of
their work expose the social-fascist role of the
Socialist party and the A. F. of L. They bring
the American Legion into the white light where
workers can see its role as fascist thug for the
bosses as chauvinist n1older of opinion for white
capitalist supremacy.
The Unemployed Councils do each of these
things here and there in q hit or miss fashion
at present, They can do all of them If the
membership represents cross-section of the
working class and of the petty capitalist ele-
ments which usually mislead it, and if the Par
ty members enter this work with real initiative
and correct policies.
Our experience in Lincoln Park indicates some
OF the possibilities Lincoln Park is city of
$4,000, mostly native born, and largely southern
extraction, which has been dominated by the
Ku Klux Khan, the American Legion and such
boss organizations as usually grace small town
Its slogan in effect was 1909, no niggers or
working class Jews The sole labor organi-
cation was a branch of the Socialist party whose
members were also members of the American
Legion, the Masonic order, and perhaps the Ku
Klux Khan.
When one states that the Executive Commit
tee of eleven, elected by our Unemployed Coun-
Gil at its first meeting, contained ex-soldiers,
Legionaires, S.P.-ites Mason, and con-
tractor lone member having all of the above
characteristics and further that all were do
minated by fear of Communist influence one
realizes that here was the basis for the play
Of the main social currents in the working
class movement. The possibilities Of nislead-
ership were shown by the suggestion that the
Executive meet In the City Hall (Which was
done) by the same person who later said eve
are licked and might as well admit it."
In the process Of our work here we have
completely exposed the A. F. of L. by directly
controlling the wages of carpenters and labor
ers, hours, overtime and personnel on school
job, after the Carpenters Union had failed even
to try. The Socialist party has been discredited
on the basis of proposals and participation of
its members in the Council The Legion was de-
feated when its Commander was driven off the
floor OF the Unemployed Council by the work
ers after two months OF SANDER against the
COHuIluIllSCS ana CIe SOVleC Union. Even the
stool-pigeon, Spolansky, of Bridgeman infamy
who was imported by the Exchange Club and
the Legion, was literally driven out of the city
under armed guard The nature of the state
was revealed to the workers by the stopping of
our boxing show by the State Boxing Commits
sion, by an eviction riot" in which the whole
police force and the Sheriff with his squad par
ticipated by the experience of ten Lincoln Park
workers, Of them ex-service men, in the Mich
igan hunger march. 1t is understood of course
that Communist comment, ctitic.-n and wide
distribution of our press marked all of these
events and processes.
We have secured speakers who have been to
the Soviet Union to answer the ISLANDERS Of the
boss elements against the Workers Fatherland,
so the workers have lively interest in and good
knowledge of the Soviet Union
Starting from hundred workers with the
usual confusion of capitalist ideas and a XIX.
K tradition, we have hammered out a real
working-class Council knowing what it wants
and not flnching from the processes necessary,
and welcoming Communist influence We have
Building Workers Industrial Union with Job