The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-01-12

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cause, against a common enemy.
The particular concrete point at
which our detectives come together.
is that point in the program of the
American League Against War and
Fsscisin. which demands that all
funds now being spent by the Amer
ieen government for war prepare
tions be turned over to the unem-
ployed, to the distressed farmers. to
those people who are without means
Of education and social services.
The present administration UP to
date has spent little more than
two billion dollars for war prepara-
tions. That is one reason why it is
cutting relief in the absurd en-
deayor 10 balance the budget. That
Is why 1t can produce no program
concerning unemployment insur-
ance, that is why 1t can make no
adequate provision for health and
education Of millions Of children.
Huge war Sums
So far even the Public Works
money appropriated to put people
to work is being used to build IA
destroyers and 6 submarines out Of
this fund. The army has been
motorized and its equipment
Brought up to date, also large Sums
have been spent for equipment for
the National Guard.
In this present Congress still
larger sums are being asked for war
preparations. So that if some Of
you people here have to take the
Jobs at a subsistence wage now be-
ing planned in the new Public
Works program, you will find that
the jobs are neither productive nor
constructive, but are part Of the
war preparations of this govern
ment, and YOU will be put to work
to provide the means of destruction
Of your fellow workers in other
countries and in this.
When you take two sets of facts
that is those that have to do with
war preparations and those which
you face concerning provision for
unemployment, and put alongside
of them a third set of facts. namely.
that while wages are falling and
cost Of living rising, monopoly cor
porations have been putting away
the largest amount of profits yet
recorded in history, you then under
stand the significance of these war
preparations.
A social system which cannot give
relief to the people, which can only
increase profits at the cost Of push
ing down the standard OF living Of
the masses lower than ever before
has no alternative but to strengthen
war preparations.
Wage Cuts Planned
When YOU look still further into
these questions you will discover
that the preparations for war in
volve certain definite plans regard
ing the place Of labor in that war.
When that war comes there are to
be no high wages for labor as there
were in the last war.
The significance Of the so-called
plan to take profit out of war is
that there is to be an attempt to
equalize the wages of the men in
the trenches and the men in war
preparations at nome, and you know
that the equalization is not to be
up but down while the corporations
under the proposed plan are to be
allowed to take an average of the
profit which they have made for
three years before the war begins,
that means if the war comes in
the next three years, the big mo-
nopoly groups take a rate Of profit
above the 1929 level. While you who
are in the war preparations at home
are to take a wage squalized to the
wage paid to the men in trenches.
And what is more, when the rep
resentstive OF the army came be-
fore the committee on the i1uf1i-