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

tallized ties of physical inter-
settlement contact as the Or
gained excursions of peasants and
urban sport clubs in Europe.
We don't have the turista who
climbs mountains just to look down
and stop in the cabin to add his iota
of tradition to the place. Ours is
the engineer with his plump bob, the
section gang, the trucks and the gas
station. Why walk UP Pixies Peak
when there's the macadam trail
awinding?
This is no Stuart Chase wall for
the beauties that were. Noel Coward
to the contrary, there can be and is
as much adventure in gas station
as in Swiss tourist cabin.
THERE is no adventure in speedup
but there is in speed. There is
adventure in a drive up Fifth Ave,
through Death Valley and the Mojaye.
just want to say this is no walking
country. I bummed my way catch
ing rides and hopping freights from
New York to Torreon in Mexico, back
to Ell Paso, out to Hollywood, up to
Frisco, clear through the continent
to the big town and all that way
spent less than three dollars on car
fare, counting trolley rides. And all
that way 1 didn't DO more than 100
miles of walking, including a 5o-mile
T. s,. y,aodn = Tgnido hfn
by circumstances.
IN EUROPE hiking and Nature
l Friend" clubs have become an in
dispensable adjunct Of the revolution
airy labor movement. There we have
been intelligent, resourceful and pa
tent enough to adapt this popular
pastine to a purpose beyond though
not interfering with it's recreational
character.
The Nature Friend hiking and
camping organization came to func-
ton as social base outside the
factory which, while not affOrding
as fruitful unit for organization,
Is a splendid medium for cultural
and, IL necessary, underground work.
The first contact I ever had with
the Communist movement was
through one of these clubs in Buda-
pest where T lived then. This was
in 1923 when the Hungarian under
ground Party was realigning its forces
after the defeat of the Commune and
trying to regain a foothold under the
lash of Hortny terror. I was eleven
years old. This club to which my
cousin took me Sundays called itself
Friends of the Children" literally
translated, and that branch consisted
mostly of young men from the revo-
lutionary unions.
They organized large excursions of
children, sometimes to the NepliSet.
which is a kind of combination Gen.
trail Park and Coney Island, some
times into the Buda mountains. We
like it because they played games
with us and took us to new places
and had real soccer ball which is
the Hungarian kids dream. Once
they took us up the Danube on a
boat riJe to visit the ruins at Wise
grad. Ny cousin, who is just winding
up a sour-year jail sentence in Buda-
pest, was already something of a
leader then.
UISEGRAD is an ancient town at
the right angle dip C. the Danube,
few hours north of Budapest. The
castle ruins are on a mountain over
looking the bend and they're an in
toxicatingly romantic affair. I had
few scrup,es about an oppressed Serf-
dom, war-ridden and miserable. The
place Just meant to me the crumbling
halls of Matthias the Just, the 18th
century monarch who liked to minsle
with his people, the admirer OF
knowledge who imported that big
library of $4,000 books and trimmed
the pants off all his opponents in war
and stemmed the tide of the Turkish
invasion, led by Constantinople's con-
queror, the great Mohsmmed II.
The tiny dsnk dungeon I associated
not with the peasantry, but with re-
calcitrant MOBILES. There was the
milestone which the miraculous Mix
los Told was accustomed to twirling