The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-11-18

ployed, should be considered as an il
large masses of workers for the EatiOl
These public hearings are to be
conducted on as wide q scale as pos
sible, drawing in workers and their
families who have as yet had no con-
tact with our Unemployed Councils.
The public hearings are to be con-
Quoted on a neighborhood basis,
bringing out the local conditions pre-
vailing there. Part time and en-
ployed workers and their families
should also be invited.
Hew to Organize Public Hearings
1. Where block organizations exist
these should be used to rally the
neighborhood in the blocks for the
hearing.
2. The hearings should be popu-
larized at all actions-cviction fights,
relief struggles, etc. Brief attractive
leaflets should be spread in the neigh
borhood calling upon the workers to
attend the hearing, giving the time
and place where it will be held.
3. House to house visits should be
made in that part of the city where
the public hearing is to take place,
inviting the whole family, including
the children to the hearing.
4. When weather permits street
meetings should be held near relief
and charity stations, flop houses, in
front Of factory gates, etc, popular
izing the hearings and inviting the
workers to attend.
5. All efforts must be made to Sc
cure doctors to examine children of
workers and issue statements as to
their state Of health. These state
ments are to be made public in the
capitalist press and used as material
in leaflets and for agitational pur-
poses.
6. The capitalist press as well as
the Daily Worker should be informed
of these hearings and representatives
Of the press invited to attend.
7. Challenges should be issued to
local aldermen, assemblynen, heads
Of relief Of charity institutions to be
present at these hearings and hear
the challenge to their systematic pol
icy Of hunger and starvation.
8. Local unions of the AFL and
other unions should be visited and
invited to send representatives to the
pubic hearings, as well as to invite
the membership to attend.
How to Conduct the Public Hearings
l. The hearings are to be open to
all who care to attend. A chairman
and secretary for the hearing should
be elected by those present at the
meeting. Stenographers should be
secured to record the testimony.
Copies of the testimony should be
sent to the Daily Worker Immediately,
and summaries of the findings sent
to the capitalist press.
2. The chairman, as well as those
active in unemployed work should
encourage those workers testifying to
bring out every issue however small
concerning their manner and mode
OF living, such as: the amount of re-
lief received, amount of rent paid.
whether the gas and electric have
been cut off, the matter of heat for
the coming winter, clothing for the
family, the extent of illness in the
family, amount spent for medical az
tention, etc, etc.
8. The public hearings should be
conducted in very informal man
ner, so that the worker who testifies
should not be made to feel that he
is making speech. Whsre a worker
finds it difficult to give clear pic
ture Of his conditions, same should
be brought out through questions.
4. Wherever possible doctors
should be gotten to be present at the
hearings to publicly examine children
and state their findings to assembled
gatherings.
Securing Organizat.onaI Results
From the Hearings
Last years experience in public
hearings showed that despite the fact
that terrible exposures Of actual hum
ger and starvation was made that
very little was done with this infor-
nation TO follow up these exposures
or struggles developed to actually at
tempt to secure relief etc. in the cases
brought out in the testimony. The
following suggestions to follow up the
information secured at the public
hearings should be carried out, each
Locality to work out on the basis of
their individual needs and POSSIBLE
tiles in the given localities.
l. Cases of pending eyictions. i'm
mediate relief, pending wage cuts and
Engineering of working hours, cut
ting off of gas and electric, etc.
should Immediately be acted upon to
develop struggles to meet the necas-
sary situation. Wherever possible
unions, fraternal organizations and
other mass organizations should be
brought in to develop the movement
in the struggle against the condi-
lions exposed by the hearings.
AT the hearings proper the workers
present should be gotten to assist the
Unemployed Council to undertake to
mobilize the workers in their blocks
against bad conditions exposed at the
and neighborhoods in the struggle
hearing.
3. In this way great impetus for
the building Of the organs Of struggle
Of the unemployed will be set up and
the workers made to feel that these
hearings are not mere spectacular
events.