The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-04-22
Chester, the City of Heavy Indust-
ries---ANd Poverty

ploys about 1000 out OF 5000 they formerly EN-
ployed. The speed up and terror is record-break-
ing. For distributing leaflets in front of the
mill two workers were arrested and given long
Jail terms
The AberfoyIe cloth weaving factory employs
mostly women but the men too get practically
the same wages as the women which is about
$40 a week and most of them are working part
time and making even less. The speed up is
unbearable, for the least bit of damage which
is result OF the vicious speed up the workers
are either fred Immediately or threatened with
being fred if it happens again.
In all OF these factories as well as the smaller
ones many workers are forced to come in every
day without knowing whether they will work
that day or not. Sometimes they do not even
get days work still they must come in or lose
their job. In this manner they are actually
slaves to these mills and factories, the only diff
ference from chatte slavery is that in those days
the slaves were fed while now the masters don't
even have to feed them.
About $4,000 workers are completely unem-
pIoyed in Chester, many OF them for as long as
two years. The City Welfare who gets most of
the money by each of them above mentioned
factory forcing their workers to contribute out
of their wages regularly gives food orders for
from 81 to So for those who have children and
more. The Negro unemployed workers get So
and So for families of and even more No
provision is made for rent or other necessities.
Single workers get no relief at all nor do married
couples who have no children. Because the UNI
employed Council prevented a number Of con-
stable sales and was becoming very popular
among the Chester unemployed workers, the
landlords are now using new schemes of forcing
the workers to move out by themselves. One of
the means used especially among the Negro IN
employed workers is to get the minister priest
to get the family out This results in two and
three families moving together in houses that
are hardly sufficient for one.
The part time workers get no relief at all and
therefore are practically in the same condition
! as the unemployed.
Due to the threatening war on the Soviet
! Union Chester, where ammuntions and other
war materials could be produced in practically
every factory, is of great Importance for our
| Party. Because Of the great poverty among the
employed well unemployed our Party could
be built very rapidly. And when we consider
| that the majority of workers in Chester work in
large basic industry we could see that shop nue.
lei could be organized in practically every fac
tory with little effort BY the efforts of only
two comrades two shop nuclei have been eStab-
Ished and yet the same material out of which
these two shop nuclei were built exists in the
Sun Ship Yard, in Fords and the rest.
There are a number Of fraternal organizations
! with membership of about 200 who almost as a
! whole work either in these factories and mills
! or have worked there and are now unemployed
| Regularly speakers come to these organizations
| who are leading Party members either from
| New York or Philadelphia. The lectures they
! give them are on the Soviet Union and other
revolutionary questions but from the results we
get for local struggles the Unemployed Council
and the Party we could clearly see that the lee
lures must be abstract and never linked up with
the tasks before these workers. who are in the
main revolutionary,
Although we have succeeded in getting about
Il new members into the Party during the re-
! cruiting drive only 8 come from those above
! mentioned organizations. And yet during the
recruiting drive many language speakers were il
! Chester, all of them Party members This
a very serious situation and some measures mw
| be taken by the leadership OF the Party to over
| come these serious shortcomings among on
| language leading comrades particularly. Evel
| amongst our local comrades here who work ii
those organizations a lack of faith in the Amer
! lean workers and pessimism generally exists
we can feel that there is something vitally
wrong in the way We carry on work among the
foreign-born workers
A beginning can be made in Chester by the
district and language fractions mobilizng the
members Of those traternal organizations for
May First. On April Oath we will have an Anti
Sedition Conference which will be linked up for
the freeing of the Scottsboro boys and May 1st
All these organizations should send delegates and
| get others in their language to do the same
On April Both, parade will be arranged in
which these organizations should participate in
! order to make it success. On May First we
will have mass meeting and concert at p
m in the Lithuanian Hall, 4th and Upland Sts
If we could get the full cooperation of all the
/ language organizations we undoubtedly could
build the Communist Party here.