The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-04-21
tBy a Worker Correspondent


FRIDAY the writer witnessed an affair in front
L Of the school housing the Home Relief Bureau
on East LIST Street which was enough to make
any red-blooded human literally burn up with
Indignation.
The writer is a mechanical engineer and for
the past three months has been unemployed
While he is not destitute, he can count his
financial resources in terms Of months when
he, too, may be in the position of the brave
men and women workers who gathered before
the closed doors of this Home Relief Bureau
and can understand and fully synapathize with
them
Here were nearly two hundred people, workers,
for the most part American born workers like
myself, who at least seemed to realize that great
and vital secret of mass action. mingled with
them, read their neaningful placards listened
to their straight-to-tfe point speeches, and
heard them, not pray or petition but demand,
like true men, their right to immediate cash
relief They demanded part OF the substance
which they helped to create. They demanded
that which was rightfully theirs but which,
because OF the Anticipated principle of private
property and all its attending evils OF selfish
ness, greed, and grasping indivldualisnl is kept
in the hands of a small rich class, while they
who toiled hard and faithfully to create it are
expected to silently suffer deprivation and desti
tuition.
Actual Starvation
AS 1 talked with a few Of the Intelligent but
wan-faced women in the crowd, l realized that
here were actual cases Of starvation before my
eyes. Here on the honest faces Of toiIers priva-
ton has written its story Here in the emaciated
bodies of their children who deserve the best
but are getting the worst that great beast of
capitalism, malnutriton, was doing its work.
And here stood the guards Of this beast, big,
well-fed, blue uniformed guards with clubs and
blackjacks that were soon TO be put into action.
The story is not long Orderly, well worded
speeches Enthusiastic responses and lusty
cheers OF working men and women The very
atmosphere was charged The writer witnessed
at least fifty passers-by who stopped listened
from the other side Of the street, and then
walked over in a body at the first invitation
from a speaker to join the assenlblage.
Cops Arrive
During the last speech the entire squad OF
our New Yorks Finest" grouped themselves
inside the door Of the now Relief-less Bureau.
As the speaker finished, the assenblage began
an orderly march into the P,<eau-into the
school building which they Themselves paid for
with their taxes, which t. >y themselves built
with their labor And th.n--with one concerted
move the doors flew open and these blue-uni-
formed guards of this rich mans democracy
charged Clubs flew Heads were cracked open.
Honest workers blood flowed freely Children
cried, women screamed and fought as their men
went down, only to rise again and fight, bare
listed, those armed betrayers OF human justice.
worker, beaten, blood smeared face wrested
free, jumped on the stand and with head up,
eyes blazing, began to speak What sight
What speech! Clubs may ak heads but
they seem only to harden the spirit of workers
like that speaker.
The same money that pays a squad Of cops to do
what this squad did also pays for reinforcements.
1t wasn't long before they arrived This brave