The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-01-11

| q SJdI -CIldLlOer conference at the OF
fices of Morgan. They agreed on q
sum of $4,000 900 to be raised for re-
4, lief. About this time, Rybicki admit
ted that there we're already one mil
lion jobless in the city. It is a glar-
ing and unforgettable fact from I'M
der which the bankers cannot crawl
out, that at this meeting not a single
one volunteered to give a penny to
aid the starving and the homeless.
To the contrary, the injunction was
: given to Gibson to go to the public
in a word. to make raid upon che
scanty savings of those who still had
jObs-most of them. at reduced wages.
For two seasons now, Gibson has
performed superbly-for Finance Cap
ital and for himself.
Upon taking hold Of his duties, he
carried through a fiendish program of
taxing the workers in offices, mills,
factories and shops What Seward
( Prosser had tried to do, Gibson &C
| complished with very little difficulty.
Corporation executives and industrial
heads lent ready hand to Gibson
to compel the workers to give from
5 to 10 per cent of their weekly wages
| to the bankers relief swindle. In this
| connection, it must also be noted that
| Tammany cajoled the teachers and
city employees to voluntarily" give
donations from their salaries to the
drive.
Workers Pay
Moreover, Gibson encouraged COM
munity centers and clubs, where
workers gather, to hold benefits for
! the jobless. Hundreds of such ben
efits have been held and again money
was squeezed out of the workers to
raise the relief quotas for the five
boroughs of the city. 1t is a mock
ing circumstance that not one affair
for the joblesS was ever held by the
Bankers Club, the City Club, the New
York Rotary Club and the yacht and
country clubs of which Gibson and
the other Wall Street barons are
members. Nor have any benefits
ever been held to aid the jobless by
| the Daughters of the American Revo-
luton and the Colonial Danes of the
Seventeenth Century, patriotic organ
lzatlons composed of wives, sisters,
daughters and mothers of the bank
ers and the financiers. 1t is true
that several magnates have opened
up their purse strings to throw out
a few crumbs to the starving. To
them, these contributions were as in
significant as a grain of sand on the
ocean beach. In return for their do
nations, they received In the capt.
talist press columns of publicity
Astounding in praise, and which at
advertising rates would have cost
them millions of dollars.
Who Gets II?
There are still some workers in
New York who are under the un-
fortunate delusion that money raised
by the Gibson Committee is placed
in the hands of destitute men and
women. Such assumptions should be
dispelled.
The millions of dollars wrested from
workers through appeals and intim-
idation during 193o-31 and up to the
present day are distributed among
capitalist social agencies" In the
Borough Of Manhattan alone, there
are about $50 such fraudulent insti-
tutions with directors, executive sec
retarieS, inspectors, and what not
all of whom draw substantial salaries
for imposing upon and depressing the
defenseless applicants for help.
Thus, the 100000 collected In
1880 for the jobless and their families
was given instead to such organiza-
lions as the Catholic Charities OF the
Arch Diocese of New York, the Jew
ish Social Service organization, the
Charity Organization Society, the AS
ISOLATION for the Improvement of the
Condition of the Poor. the United
Jewish Aid Society, the Brooklyn Bu-
reau OF Charities, the Staten Island
Social Service and the Protestant
Big Sisters. 1t is patent that by the
time the money filtered through tbs
hands of the high-paid executives ano
the bureaucratic inspectors, there was
little left to go around for those act
ually in need.
The plan of the bankers block
aid" also was conceived by Gibson
to compel workers in the neighbor-
hoods to give from their almost ex-
hausted savings.
With the city relief drive directed
by Gibson, 1t could not possibly be
other than crooked. For reasons al
ready given, Gibson was not in a
position to ask the bankers and the
industrialists to aid in the campaign
(even if he so desired.
= The Hand of American Smelling Co
Gibson is a director of the Amer
lean Smelling and Refining Company
AS member Of the board, he take.
y up administrative matters and it l.
a part of his duty to help map out
the labor policies of the company
This corporation has made millions
of dollars year after year before ths
crisis and since. In 1890, this corpor.
alton employed 23,97l men and WON.
en-. In 1881, although it distributed
s8,359,927 in dividends to director,
and stockholders, the American
Smelling and Refining Company dis.
; charged 6,547 workers. Gibsons com.
pany owns plants In Texas, Colorado
Utah, Montana, New Jersey, Nebrss.
ka, California and Illinois. 1t also
has mines in Mexico, Peru, Newfound-
land and Australia.
Wright AirpIanes
Gibson also is director OF the
Wright Aeronautical Corporation and
the United States Distributing Cor