The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-01-02

Four unemployed American work
ers, a Negro stockyard worker, an
American construction laborer,
Jewish shoemaker and Ben Winter
snapped stories in the twilight of
winter afternoon. Like one who
never saw the light of day suddenly
gains sight and beholds scene of
color and life where before only
darkness reigned, so Ben Winter,
through contact with these workers,
woke up to truths that erstwhile were
-existant for him.
Their stories, convinced him as
nothing else before, that such
troubles as his are shared by mall
lions of toilers throughout the coun-
try and the world He soon also
realized that the sufferings of the poor
are due to the lack Of unity among
them; because of their failure to act
shoulder to shoulder they are bitterly
exploited and taken advantage Of by
the crafty and unscrupulous. On
the other hand he saw it demon
strated what the strength of the
workers is like when they unite into
fighting working class organiza-
ton When he was strangled in the
grip of misery and starvation be-
cause of under employment and
miserable wages, it was not the
crafty politician nor the charity lady
who came to his rescue, but the
workers, organized in the Unem-
ployed Council. 1t was they who &C
complished the feat which gave him
and his family new lease on life.
DEN is unaware how the Unem-
u ployed Council learned about his
condition. When he had given up
all hope of helping himself and
resigned himself to the inevitable,
they knocked at his door Three of
them entered, questioned him briefly
and promptly hurried him off to the
public charity station. Other work
ers joined them on the way. This
time, surrounded by the delegation,
he had no difficulty entering the
building. Once inside they were
promptly ushered in to the super
yisor's Office. Ben watched her
squirming as she yielded to the auth
Gritty of the workers delegation. The
charity pen squeaked writing the
food-order under the pressure of the
proletarian fist.
This happened the day before Now
these workers dropped in for a check
up and chat. Though he had known
these men for only few hours, he
felt that actually he belonged to
them all his life. He was impressed
by their simplicity and intelligence.
He listened with every fiber of his
being to their exposition of the
causes of and cure for the depres-
sion For once he realized that it
is the faulty economic system that
Systematically drives millions of
workers into starvation and misery.
1t is the profit system Of the capt.
talist society that forces workers to
toll during the so-called prosperity
periods only to be Scrapped when
they are no longer profit producing,
just SO that a handful who never
produce themselves could thrive in
luxury and have their way about
things! A system of industrial
slavery of the worst kind.
Ben felt ashamed he never thought
of it himself. He was eager to do
something about it, as if to vim
dictate himself His heart throbbed
with excitement when they proposed
that he join them in the Unem-
ployed Council in struggle against
starvation and the system that breeds
it. When they got up and shook
hands with him in parting, he felt
with every warm hand pressure as
though new life was rushing into
his veins. That night Ben Winter
entered UPON new path, the path
of class struggle.