The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-06-08

THIS Is the story Of Swedish
workers family during the great
Swedish general strike Of 1909.
Peter Hammsr is a lscemaker.
Hanna, his wife. must also Do Of
fee cleaning to keep bread on the
table. The Oldest Of the FIVE chill
dren, Erland. has to leave elemen-
tary school and is apprenticed IN
Candy-maker. The tax collector gets
ready 10 sell the furniture Of the
Hsmmars. Erland loses his lob.
Hanna Hammar begins visiting the
pswnbroker. Strikebreskers to
break the dock strike are imported
from England. There is bombing.
The General Strike flares out.
Prices soar skyhigh Sandbagging
the workers lower to the ground.
Peters wages drop to 20 kronor a
week, or about S.. The children 90
hungry. And Peter finally joins the
strike.
Bound up with the story of the
Hammar family are the stories of
their neighbors and friends in the
tenement district. There is Frid-
man, the carpenter, a great blower.
Krok who becomes a scab and is
killed in pit after a chase by the
strikers, Uncle Hasse, a hswSe car
rier with his weakness for telling
sea stories, little Aunt" with the
harelip, Hjalmsr stromberg the
mechanic, etc. And these charac-
tiers often stand out more wildly.
give us a better taste OF what
Swedish workers are than the mem
Fers OF the Hammar family because
the author pats around them less.
Our Daily Bread" does give us
a picture Of the hard life Of a
Swedish workers family. But it is
q picture that is weak, fragmentary.
showing little understanding of the
nature of the struggles Of the work
ers. The writer is handicapped
probably because he has been away
from the country for the last II
years. Also because he seems TO see
his characters through the steam of
the past colored with Christian piety
and sentiment The book reeks of
yearning for that past, for the old
home, and appears to be autobio-
graphical. The story suffers chiefly
because the writer lacks those fine
sociological instruments which
measure circumstances, characters.
classes and when applied by a true
literary hand give the full circle
and depth of such a struggle as the
Swedish general strike.
DETER and Hanna Hammar have
all the weaknesses Of workers
caught in the poisonous Christian
jelly. Picture after picture of
drawn-out domestic scenes cloy one
and stick to the fingers. Now It
would be idiotic to insist that
writer concern himself merely with
class conscious workers. But the
point to be made is that the writer
should not be q worshiuper and de-
fender Of the backwardness Of such
workers. But here the writer buries
himself above the belly, savorinE all
this saying Of grace, making the
family the center of all the action
when the time and the story de-
mand the workers struggles become
the storm center, chucking Just a
few bits like the death of the scab.
the meeting Of the strikers. etc.
like raisins into the bread. There
is no understanding that such fam
lily relations make the members
over-emotionaliZed and act to ham
string all attempts on the part Of
the strongest members to put class
allegiance above family allegiance.
Because the family under such cir
cumstances Is one Of the deadliest
weapons of capitalism. In much the
same way the writer goes into &C.
stasies over Peter Hammar's ko-
loni, which the Swedish ruling class
used like the German ruling class
to make the workers forget their
troubles, These koloni are small