The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-04-14

III In6 expenditure Size OF the 0uQGeL
changes took the following direction: To banks,
corporations wealthy individuals and property
owners, increased payments Of Alb per cent
Expenditures for war purposes, increased by 90
per cent. Against these increases. economy was
practiced by reducing wages Of government en-
ployees, and veteran allowances, by 80 per cent
and q per cent.
Fourth. distribution Of National Income.
Roosevelt promised that he would begin to
remedy the redistribution of the natural in
come, whereby the rich get too much and the
poor get too little How this has been carried
out is disclosed in a report submitted to the U.
S. Senate by the Bureau Of Foreign and Do
nestle Commerce on Jan. l, 1884 Summarize
izing its findings, the report says:
Wages have suffered the most severely in
the general decline since 1929, with a fall
ing of of sixty 1907 per cent in those indus
tries in which IT was possible 10 segregate
this item. Salaries dropped forty CaO) per
cent, much less rapidly than wages, with the
most severe curtailment occurring in 1882
significant divergence in declining trends
Is apparent as between labor income and prop
erty income by 1892 the former had fallen
off by forty (4O) per cent, while property in
come distributed receded but thirty (3Ol per
cent This situation was brought about by
the maintenance of interest payments rather
uniformly up to 1882, with only small de-
cline then"
This pictures the development under the
Hoover regime. Roosevelts new deal" prom
tsed to reverse this trend. Actually. what hap
pened in 1888 was, the purchasing power of the
workers went backward "a fact testified by the
A, F. of L. and the Bureau Of Labor Statistics
while property income took a sharp rise. A re-
cent report of group of large selected cor
porations which in 1882 showed loss of about
S45 millions, showed that in 1898 they had been
restored to the profit side Of the ledger by about
a half-blion dollars.
Fifth, the workers housing: In estimating the
social effects of the shift Of national income
away from the workers and to property owners.
it must be remembered that even in 1882 the
majority of workers lived Just at or below the
subsistence level. Every loss of income has been
q direct deduction from daily necessities Of life.
This is sharply expressed in the catastrophe
vorsening of housing conditions The epidemic
Of tenement house fires burning to death hun
dreds of men, women and children is but
dramatic revelation Of one corner Of the in
human conditions under which growing millions
are reduced.
Sixth, breaking up the home; barometer
Of the degeneration Of living standards is the
growing army Of wandering, homeless people,
especially children. The new deal" proposed to
turn the army Of unattached boys into a mill
tary reserve through the Civil Conservation
Camps. Some 100000 boys we're so recruited in
1888; but in spite Of this mass nilitarization,
all reports agree that a larger number than be-
fore Of homeless youth wandered the country.
Seventh, collapse of the school system: Con-
ditions in the school system in rich America
reflect the catastrophe situation of the masses
No improvement is to be seen under the new
deal' but on the contrary, a sharp worsening
takes place. Just few details presented not
by Communist agitators but by the U. S. Com
missioner of Education, George r. zook, and
the National Education Association, describing
the current, school year, after Mr. Roosevelts
new deal was at work. Over 100000 children
of school age cannot find place Over 1000
schools in rural communities failed to open this
year in "a states (the other "a states, probably,
being ashamed to report because their condi-
lions are worseD Some l 500 commercial schools
and 16 institutions Of higher learning have been
completely liquidated. School terms in nearly
every large city are from one to two months
shorter than they were 10 to 100 years ago. The
average term in the U. S., ITO school days per
year. is less than that for France, Germany,
England, Sweden, Denmark. School teachers
wages are generally from four to twenty -four
months in arrears, although interest on bonds
is paid promptly. In Chicago where teachers
are behind in their wages by $2500o000, the
committee enforcing the economy program con-
tains, among its % members, all afiiated with
big business, five directors of the largest banks
and IA residents of exclusive Lake Shore Drive
('the Gold Coast'D Unemployed teachers are
estimated at a quarter million. Teachers wage
rates have been cut by 81 per cent In IA States
even this reduced salary is far behind in pay
n1ent.
1t is impossible to go into all the ramifcations
Of the result of successful" New Deal pro-
gram. We have shown enough to fully expose,
that the success was in giving more to the
rich, and taking away from the poor even that