The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-01-24
PARTY LIFE
''Ihey Wantedsto Know Ho,0
The Daily Vas DIFFERENT
Nash Workers in Ks,pOshu Buy Anniversary
Edition; Sloppy York in Brooklyn

TOday's letters deal with the sale
and distribution of the Daily
Worker. We have picked these
two letters-One from KenOsha,.
Wisconsin, where q strike was re
Gently conducted in the Nash auto
mobile factory, and the other from
Brooklyn, N. Y, where our COM
rades are endeavOring to establish
a shop nucIeus-because they offer
a striking contrast between effec-.
tive and careless work, in relation
to the Daily Worker, and in COM
nection with shop activity. as1
,,,a-s
How 500 Daily Workers Were
Distributed in Kenosha
In reply to your request for expert
ences in selling the Tenth Anniyer-
sary Edition of the Daily Worker, I
am outlining the methods used and.
results achieved here in Kenosha. 3.
First, we received $50 copies of the
edition. Sixty Of these were our
regular Saturday order. ~
One hundred and Seventy-five out
of the $50 were sold by thorough
canvass of a given territory. I myself
sold over 100 in this fashion, and
had the following experience: In an
area covering about Is city blocks,
not very densely populated, and on
both sides of the street, I sold over
50 copies. This was at about the
rate of one out Of every four. In
no case was an attempt made to run,
me off the premises, or even any
sign of anger at the sight OF the
daily" In many places, I was told:
mo. we already have the Sunday
paper" But in SO per cent of these
cases, after explaining that the
Daily was entirely different from
the capitalist press, did not carry a
duplication of the news in the boss
sheets, and had many letters from
workers in various industries, desert
bling their conditions of work, as well
as feature articles, cartoons, ETC., I
was able to make sale.
I always had my finger on page
in the supplement containing an at
tractive cartoon, such as the repro
duction of Minors Three Bankers
Go to Berlin" and would open to
this page after showing the front OF
the paper. One weakness was that
due to the large number had TO.
sell I was unable to talk very long
with those workers buying the paper.
A smaller number, more thorough
acquaintance established, is the bet
ter policy in the long run, am
convinced.
One fundamental rule to be always.
observed is: Never be discouraged be-
cause you don't succeed in selling,
and never be anything but cheerful
in approaching workers. One must
be patient when they express harm
full ideas, capitalist notions, ETC., and
not show any evaporation, but very
calmly reason things out. These are
elementary rules. But many COM
rades who perhaps once knew them
have long since forgotten, and lose
their patience and their temper when
workers do not agree with them.
One hundred and twenty-five out
of the $50 were sold to people SYM
pathetic to the Party. That is, the
comrades would take IS or 20 and
go and sell them to people they
already knew would buy. This is q
very bad way of doing things, since
it limits us to contacts already estab-
lished and does not broaden out our
influence. In some cases these were
taken for shopmates, and this is
entirely different, since 1t represents
one of the means Of shop concen-
tration.
Nash Workers Eager for 'Daily"
The other $50 were given out at
the Nash factory gates and were
fairly grabbed out of our hands by
the men. 1t is very difficult, at the
present time, to sell "Dailies" at the
factory gates. There are two main
reasons for this: One is the fact that
most workers don't carry any change
with them to work. (This is true in
Kenosha where most Of them return
home for lunch and drive their own
cars or walk to work.
The second reason is that there
is still fear of exposing themselves
before the boss, especially since the
A. F. of L. sold out the recent strike