The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-11-12
Texas .JObless
EndSchenlings
OF Misleaders

of Misleaders
AUSTIN, Tex, Nov. 11.-Work-
ers of this city, refusing TO "sCarve
! in public, have put a stop to hunger
strikes which were being sponsored
by Buck Roberts, a politician said to
have been in the employ of the
Travis county relief commission.
Roberts, who ran for the state
legislature two years ago. had a
two-fold purpose in staging these
hunger strikes: to break up the
Austin Unemployment Council,
which led the hunger march on the
capitol the previous week, and to
get a measure passed by the fourth
extraordinary session Of the State
legislature to force the unemployed
to work on Centennial projects for
whatever food they could get from
the relief administration. Both
plans failed.
The first hunger strike staged by
Roberts, a few days after the hunger
march led by the Unemployment
Council, consisted Of about eighty
five Negro, white and Mexican
workers throughout its cne-day
duration. One striker collapsed
with hunger, and had to be carried
out. About midnight, politicians
and members of the legislature
promised to investigate conditions
of the unemployed if the strikers
would return to their homes. The
next morning, according to state
ments of these strikers, Roberts
went into a closed session with re-
lief officials while their committee
remained outside. No relief came
to these hungry people who had
gone on strike.
Maneuvers Exposed
Roberts then announced, in the
capitalist press, that a meeting
would be held on the following
Sunday afternoon for "a bigger
and better strike" He rushed in
and secured park permit to hold
this meeting in the same park and
at the same hour that the Unem-
ployment Council had been meeting,
managing, in this way, to get the
crowd About two hundred persons
were present, including a majority
of workers, some spectators, an
officer, a capitalist reporter and
two working class reporters. The
Southern Worker, carrying 'front.'
page account of the unemployment
Council hunger march, was dis
tributed by workers in the crowd.
Roberts, waving his park permit,
assumed possession of the pavilion,
and began abusing the workers for
not coming out in greater numbers
for the hunger strike He and the
strike leader, E. J. Webb threat
ened to resign if the workers did
not support them by staging a huge
hunger strike in the capitol the
next day. The workers, already
aware of the treachery practiced on
them, told them to go ahead and
resign
Workers Report
John Seymour and Louise P-eece,
the working class reporters in the
group, addressed the workers,
pointing out that Roberts was en-
deavoring to mislead them for his
own purposes, and that to follow
him meant starvation instead of the
food which even then lay in the
commissary while they were hungry.
The latter speaker, called by the
crowd to take the platform, did
So challenging Roberts to lead the
workers to the commissary for food
now that he saw what they wanted.
Faker is Repudiated
Roberts then put the hunge.
strike to a vote Only thirty per-
sons, mostly women and children,
agreed to strike in the capitol the
next day. This strike was a COM
plete failure, Roberts reslgning at
the end of the day after giving out
a statement to the paper that
"agitators" had caused the failure.
The meeting in the park was
taken over by the Unemployment
Council, Roberts and his group be-
ing unable to hold down the floor
after the workers demanded that
the Council be allowed to hold its
regular meeting.
The rebellion of the workers of
Austin is typical Of the rebellion Of
the unemployed workers all over the
state, not only against the starva-
ton which they are forced to IN
dergo, but also against the mis-
leaders who purport to represent
them in their attempts to deliver
the working class into the hands of
the authorities and relief officials.
The state legislature, in its third
extraordinary session in September,
handed over to the State Board Of
Control the entire administration
Of relief with additional instruc-
tions to eliminate relief altogether.
Since this time, nearly 10000 work
erS have been dropped from the
relief rolls, 1000 of these being in
Travis county alone. The forcing
of relief by Unemployment Councils
all over the state, in it's leadership
Of the workers against starvation,
is the answer.