The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-02-14


coming from all the important industrial centerS
of the United States, demand that the Federal
Government shall, during the present session Of
Congress, enact legislation providing for an ade-
quate system of unemployment insurance to re-
neve the workers from the present intolerable
conditions growing out of mass unemployment.
In making this demand, we speak as direct
delegates of the more than 100000 workers who
have either signed or otherwise given their sup
port to the Workers Unemployment Insurance
Bill (Which is contained herein) and whose for
NAL endorsements we are handing you. together
with these proposals. We represent the VIII Of
the overwhelming majority of the working class,
who unequivocally demand the establishment Of
a national system of government unemployment
insurance,
The Struggle Against Hunger.
The workers demand for unemployment in
slrance is demand for the right to live. 1t
is fight against mass starvation. Ten million
workers now walk the streets jobless, with no
income whatever That many more work part
time Wages have been slashed In practically
every industry and also in government work
Even the "Annalist" of Jan. Is is compelled to
admit that for the past year the loss in wages
and salaries amounts to 81, OO0o 10000 per month
No unemployment relief worthy Of the name is
stalks among the workers, whose slender re-
serves in millions of cases have long since been
exhausted.
Rich America forces nearly two million chill
dren az school age into child slavery. Millions
of workers children in rich Arneriea are hungry
They are being stunted in body and brain by
child labor and slow starvation. In the soft
coal districts, unclad and starved, the miners
children go barefoot in the snow. Pellagra, the
dread hunger disease Of famine-stricken India,
and China, is now thoroughly AEnericanized and
runs rife among the soft coal miners and the
southern textile workers. Everywhere mass
starvation eats insidiously at the vitals Of the
workers In every big city 1t has become
commonplace for fanished workers to collapse
or even die In the breadlinea In New York City,
tuberculosis, increased IA per cent during the
past year because Of the prevailing mass MANU-
triton and all the hospitals In tho city are
crowded with what amounts TO actual starvation
cases. Great armies Of workers. vaiply search
ing for work. Starve and freeze as Tarnps on the
railroads or exc out miserable existence IN the
horrible "jungles' which are to be found La every
city The "crime" wave and prostitution, fed
by the mass restitution Of the workers, mounts
to unprecedented heights. Many workers, driven
desperate by unemployment, drown themselves
or blow out their brains,
The BreadIine and Nightstick Policy.
This mass starvation is enforced against the
workers by the employers and their government
through various terroristic means. Wherever
unemployed have dared to organize and demon
Strate against the intolerable starvation condi-
tons they have been dubbed, gassed and Jailed
numerically. Thousands Of workers who have
invested their life savings in homes are being
evicted by mortgage foreclosure, and tens of
thousands of workers have been evicted from
their miserable homes because they could not
pay rent. Vicious vagrancy laws are being re-
vived and enforced against the workers. In the
industries, the spy system, the blacklist and
other forms of economic terrorism are being used
as never before. Foreign born workers are being
systematically prosecuted and Disseminated
against in every way And in the South, the
ruling class, with the connivance OF the national
state and local governments, are using more than
ever that browning shame OF America, lynch
ing, in order to try to COW into submission the
awakening Negro masses. The Federal Govern
ment has given its stamp Of approval for and
sounded the keynote of this whole program Of
terrorism by its establishment Of the infamous
Fish Commission which aims to crush every pro-
test of the workers. 80
For the workers, as well as for millions OF
poor farmers, of whom Senator Caraway says,
1000 daily dying of starvation, America, 'the
land of opportunity, the country Of prosperity,
where every worker is becoming capitalist" is
q place of mass hunger and suppression. Capt.
talst America throws upon the streets the mil
lions of producers those who have built the in
dustry and the great wealth, and it cynically
answers with terrorism their demands for relief.
Because they have produced too much, the toll
ing masses must starve, because the warehouses
are bursting with wealth, the workers and their
families must go without the barest necessities
of life The workers are beginning to see the
idiocy and the bankruptcy of the capitalist sys-
tenn in all this outrageous situation.
If capitalist America brutally forces its pro-
ducsrs to starve, 1t has, however, no bounty too
great to pour into the lap Of its parasitic capt.
talist ruling class, who are worse than useless
both in industry and in society In general This
year many great corporations are paying bigger
reserves and the wealthy are plunging into I'M
paralleled depths Of luxury and prof1igacy. The
very sight of the workers and poor farmers in
poverty and misery seems to incite them to
flaunt all the more their boundless riches robbed
from the toilers They cold bloodedly prepare
new world war, in first place against the Soviet
Union. They are planning to use the unem-
ployed as well as the employed wholesale as
cannon fodder.
The Government Against the weskcY.
The government must provide relief for the
unemployed. But practically nothing has been
done by Its national, state and local branches.
The present so-calIed relief measures, and the
sham battle In Congress on this question, are