The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-09-21
800 Cape Cod Fisherman,
Many Permanently Jobless,
Face Fourth Desolate Winter
Descendants of Early Portuguese Settlers
Exc Out Miserable Existence Within Sight
of Anchored, Luxurious n. 7. Yachts
BY MARGUERITE YOUNG

PROVINCETOWN, Mass-On an
evening when 20-odd magnificent
racing boats of the New York Yacht
Club squadron lolled haughtily at
anchor in the harbor here, Jose Vas
SOS sat beside the crucifix in his
lamplit sitting room and said, II
wonder how we're gonna get through
next winter?"
Jose Vassos (Which is not his
nance is one of the 1900 morgan
lied fishermen who are exploited and
terrorized by four cold-storage fac
tories located in Provincetown, but
owned chiefly by New Workers and
Bostonians. Once the fishing indus
try supported hundreds of sturdy, in
dependent colonists, but now:
Sometimes we really have to pay
the companies for taking our catch
to market" Jose Vassos said. 1.-THE
companies own the boats and the
traps. We work for them. They send
our fish to market, they take out
their expenses and they take out
their profit, and the rest they let us
share. Many times they tell us the
fish didn't pay expenses. We've got
to cough up"
300 to 400 Always Jobless
Between 300 and 400 of the fisher
men are permanently unemployed
and there is no such thing as public
relief in Provincetown. Many of the
1900 are part-time workers, ION CALI
to be summoned by the factory to
go out to net, to seine, to handline
at 2 or or am. A few inside
workers earn SIS to $18 week-twc
to four in each factory. Most Of the
employed feel lucky if they earn SIC
this week, SIS next, and then nothing
for two or three weeks.
They amt doing nothing dowr
here about the MIRA" Jose Vassos
responded when asked about that
Foods gone up, but not wages. The
factories still have two firemen and
two engineers only, each working Il
hours day"
Like all the other fishermen, jose
Vassos is a Portuguese, one of the
descendants of those proud colorists
who came from Lisbon and the
Azores, to fish in America, not SC
very long after the Pilgrims put in
at Provincetown on their way to Ply
mouth. But now the Provincetown
descendants of the English colonists
will advise stranger seeking lodg-
ings, Rooms cost SIS to $40 a week
unless you want to live among the
Portuguese. OF course it's less-if
you're willing to live with the Portu-
gueSe."
Crisis Has Increased Hardships
Most Of the middle-class tourists
and artists who make a summertime
Greenwich Village of this bright lit
tie community that rests on the very
end of Cape Cod-curiously, the Cape
is exactly like a militant workers
arm, stretching out into the sea from
Massachusetts,, with the elbow bent
and the fist clenched!-d not want
to live among the Portuguese fish
ermen.
There is more ace-consciouSneSS
in the fisher families. Once only they
tried to organize and failed because
of the attitude of the factories. But
they are better prepared for organ
ization now than they ever have been
before; each of the last three years
has brought them increased hard
ships.
This was evident In Jose Vassos,
as he sat there, his face bronzed and
scanned, his muscles thick from 80
years fishing, his dark and fiery