The Daily Worker

DEMOCRATIC
FAKERS BARED
BY AMTER

Communist
Candidate
for Governor of N.Y.

Analyzes Platform

MASS MISERY RISES

C.P. Leads Struggle of
Masses Against the
Bosses' Program

By I. AMTER
Communist Candidate for Governor
of New York

In his keynote speech at Buffalo
at the New York Democratic Convention, Senator Wagner issued the
challenge that "the single issue in
this campaign, State and National,
is the New Deal." Following out
this challenge, the State Democratic
platform says, "the platform of the
wage earners and the salary man
has been advanced. The resources
of the nation have been marshalled
for relief of the unemployed and
distressed. Chaos and panic have
been banished, fear dispelled, hope
and confidence restored."

We Communists accept the challenge of the "New Deal."
William Green, who is not a Bolshevik, in his Labor Day address
declares that there are 10,800,000
unemployed in the U. S. (an increase of more than 500,000 over
October of last year) and that these
people with their families constitute a mass of forty million people
who are dependent on relief.
This means that one third of the
population of the United States is
dependent on relief. Harry Hopkins,
federal relief director, states that
sixteen million people are on relief
in the country. This means that
there are twenty-four million people
in the United States without relief.
William Hodson, Commissioner of
the Department of Welfare, in his
report submitted a few days ago,
declared that more than a million
"normally employed" workers are
jobless today in the city of New
York. This demonstrates clearly that
a third of the population of New
York City is dependent on relief.
However, William Green's estimate is incorrect. At the A. F. of L.
convention, Robert J. Watt, a delegate from Massachusetts, declared
there are "17 million workers in the
U. S. without steady employment."
Watt's estimate is far more correct,
Green's calculation does not include

(Continued on Page 5)
Amter Analyzes Democrats
Campaign
Platform

More Misery for Masses
Is Provided for in
Every Plank
By I. AMTER
Communist Candidate for Governor
of New York

(Continued from Page 1)


the seven million boys and girls who, according to the U. S. Commissioner of Education, Dr. Zook have left school and college and are without work. In the New York Times of Oct. 6, in an article by Newton D. Baker, we find the following statement:

"Since 1929 some six million boys and girls of the U. S. have left school and college. Of these hardly more than one-third have found work to do, and most of that fortunate third are on short hours and short pay."

Fully 16,000,000 Jobless
In addition, Green does not consider the hundreds of thousands of white collar workers of whom there are more than 150,000 in the City of New York alone, as well as the professionals of every category. For instance, 95 per cent of the architects of the country are unemployed; 85 per cent of the engineers and technicians, 80 per cent of the building workers, 50 per cent of the railroad workers who alone represent a mass of one million men; 250,000 school teachers are without work and with the cutting down of the school budgets on the plea of "economy" have no prospect of getting work. Hundreds of thousands of small farmers have been ruined by the A.A.A. and the drought, and have been driven off the land.

Therefore, we Communists declare there are fully sixteen million unemployed.

Who are the most stricken sufferers of the crisis? The Negro people. In Harlem, the largest Negro center in the world, there are 204,000 Negroes of whom 85 per cent are unemployed. There are thousands of Negroes who are getting no relief and as a consequence the disease and mortality rate in Harlem is among the highest in the country. This applies to every Negro community, owing to the segregation, congestion, unsanitary homes, the doubling up and the fire trap conditions under which they have to live.

The most cruel effects fall on the children. According to Frances Perkins, "25 per cent of the children of the U. S. are undernourished"—this is, hungry. Even Newton D. Baker, in the above mentioned article, states:

"Surveys show that one-fifth of all pre-school children today are undernourished; that one-third of all children are physically or mentally handicapped."

Two and a quarter million children in the U. S., particularly the Negro children in the South, are getting no education. Schools have closed down because of cuts in the educational budgets. Schools are overcrowded. Many of them are literally firetraps. Tens of thousands of teachers remain unemployed and $60,000,000 is owed to them in back wages.

No one can forget the infamous instruction issued by the relief Bureau of New York City, namely, "that those nationalities which are used to lower standards of living shall get a lower standard of relief. This includes Negroes, Latin-Americans, and Italians."

The Democratic platform talks about impartiality in relief, but even President Roosevelt has admitted that relief is a political racket and that each political party is taking advantage of it. It is not only the Democratic Tammany Hall chieftains who recommend and obtain relief for their followers, but also LaGuardia, who has built LaGuardia clubs in N. Y. C., which serve the same purpose, and are used to terrorize the masses and build up political machines.

Democrats Lie
If the Democratic platform and Lehman contend that "fear has been dispelled among the unemployed," they are lying to the population.

Facing the situation of the starving children as we do, how hypocritical is the proclamation of Gov. Lehman, endorsed by Pres. Roosevelt, declaring October a "milk month."

It is not necessary to convince parents of hungry children that milk is a healthful product nor have they deprived their children of milk because they thought otherwise.

Lehman and the Democratic platform talk of stimulating agriculture which is the most important industry of the State, by boosting the sale of milk. But it is a fact in the State of New York that the maximum that a farmer receives for a quart of milk is 3¼ cents while a worker in New York City has to pay 13 cents for grade B and 16 cents for grade A milk. The big milk distributors, Borden, Sheffield, etc., and the National Dairy Products Assoc., of which Lehman is a member of the Board of Directors and a large stock holder, obtains the difference between what the farmer receives and what the worker has to pay in the cities. National Dairy Products, during the whole period of the crisis, year after year, has increased its profits and the Wall Street banker, Lehman himself, is a big recipient of these profits.

Greater Misery Than Ever
The Democratic platform states "that the welfare of the wage earner has been advanced." Yet President Roosevelt's Commission of Economic Security has admitted that 25 per cent of the wage earners are unemployed; and Richberg, head of the N. R. A., has informed Roosevelt that the payroll of the U. S. has increased only 8.5 per cent. But the Department of Commerce reports that in the same period the cost of food has mounted 30½ per cent. This completely wipes out the increase in payrolls. Therefore the answer to Roosevelt's question, "Are you not better off than a year ago?" asked in his speech over the radio on June 28, is a decided "NO!" The masses of the U. S. are not better off but on the contrary there is a greater destitution and misery than ever before.

Fascism Develops
Section 7-a of the N. R. A. code was hailed as a safeguard of the rights of the workers to organize into unions of their own choice. It has proved to be a mockery of the rights that workers have obtained through generations of struggle. Section 7-a instead of supporting these rights has been used as a means of establishing company unions in the U. S. and when Mr. Sloan of the General Motors Corporation made his proposal for company unions in the auto industry he was immediately supported by William Green.

Instead of being "backed up" by Roosevelt, workers who have gone out on strike to enforce their rights to join unions of their own choosing have faced police clubs, gangsters, strike-breakers, tear gas, machine guns and the National Guard—and Roosevelt was ready to send the U. S. Army into Rhode Island and California. In addition there have been formed all kinds of Fascist organizations like the Vigilantes, Silver Shirts, etc., made up of public officials and business elements to crush the struggles of the workers. The San Francisco strike, the Textile strike, the New York taxi drivers strike, the strike of the leather workers of Gloversville, with the murder and wounding of scores of workers, show that the "New Deal" is facilitating the development and establishment of Fascism in the United States.

The best expression of the "New Deal" can be given in the following three figures:

1. Harry Hopkins reported that over a period of eighteen months, from Jan. 1, 1933 to June 1, 1934, the Federal, State and local governments combined appropriated $1,340,000,000 for relief for 4,000,000 families. Although this sounds like a huge sum, it means an average per family of $18.61 per month. Although relief is higher in some parts of the country, owing to struggle led by the Communist Party and the Unemployment Councils, it drops to as low as four to five dollars a month in Alabama and Georgia, where there is a great mass of unemployed Negroes. It is only $19 a month in Seneca County, N. Y.

2. The Government that talks "economy," as far as the workers are concerned, slashed the wages of 800,000 federal employees; through the National Economy Act it cut down the disability allowances of hundreds of thousands of vets and threw thousands of disabled vets out of the hospitals to die. This same government is expending close to $2,000,000,000 for war.

3. The same government has given to the banks, railroads, and other big corporations $8,300,000,000.

The purpose of these subsidies, we were told, was to increase production, put the workers back to work and increase the buying power of the masses. Instead these billions have been pumped out of the U. S. Treasury into the treasuries of these trusts so they could pay increased profits. Richberg reported to Roosevelt on the first anniversary of the "New Deal" that the profits of the big corporations under the "New Deal" increased up to six hundred per cent.

This is the "New Deal" that we Communists challenge. Its aim was not to improve the conditions of the masses but to fix prices, increase profits, drive out all small competitors, concentrate power in the hands of the biggest Wall St. banks, establish company unions, introduce fascism and prepare for war.

Democrats' Proposals
What does the Democratic platform propose in this situation? Firstly, unemployment relief, which is to be met by a bond issue of $40,000,000. Not only is this sum totally inadequate in view of the rising number of unemployed and the growing destitution of the masses, but the method of relief is also against the interest of the workers. There is nothing mysterious about bond issues. State bonds are bought by the bankers. Interest must be paid every year and finally the bonds must be paid off. The State's source of revenue, namely, taxation, rests upon the shoulders of the workers and farmers.

In addition, the Democratic platform proposes an "unemployment insurance plan" as against the Communist Party demands, and Lehman in his acceptance speech deplored the fact that he was not supported by the Republicans in this proposal. Both of them agreed, however, that the insurance they propose must be paid for by forced contributions from workers. Neither the Byrne-Condon Bill nor the Steingut-Mastick Bill nor the bill recently endorsed by the N. Y. State A. F. of L., will supply the more than 2,100,000 who are now unemployed with a penny of insurance. In addition, hundreds of thousands of domestic, agricultural and other workers will get no insurance, nor will workers on strike. Workers now employed, if discharged in the future, will obtain a limited compensation per week for a limited number of weeks after a designated waiting period and then would have no claim upon the insurance administration.

Communist Demands
As against this method of relief and insurance, as endorsed both by the Democratic and Republican parties, the Communist Party is demanding an appropriation for winter relief from the state of $200,000,000, the funds to be raised not by a bond issue, but by taxation of all incomes over $5,000. In other words, at the expense of those who are in control of industry and finance.

Against
This Program
the Communist Party
Organizes Struggle

The Communist Party calls on the workers to organize in the shops to fight for increased wages, for the right to organize into unions of their own choosing, for the right to strike and picket, for the abolition of the use of injunctions, the police and the military in strikes.

Roosevelt's proposal of "industrial peace," of an "industrial truce" means the giving up of the right to strike and the acceptance of the miserable wages and conditions in the shops. Bill Green accepted the proposal—but the Communists and the workers reject it.

The Communist Party demands cancellation of all the debts resting on the farmers and small home-owners, and the abolition of the Home Owners Loan and the Farmers Loan Corporations, which are not providing protection for either the small home owner or the small farmers.

The Communist Party is mobilizing the masses of the United States against war and fascism, for the fight against the capitalist system which is trying to save itself at the expense of the workers and farmers, for the fight against the "New Deal," with its developing fascism. In doing so we are carrying out the great revolutionary traditions of 1776 as applied to 1934.

The Declaration of Independence says:

"When a long train of abuses and usurpations, invariably pursuing the same objects, evinces a design to reduce them (the people) under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government and provide new safeguards for their security."

Today we face a growing despotism that denies millions of workers the right to work and makes them the wards of charity. Our rights are being trampled on, fascist organizations are growing, anti-Semitism and lynch terror are increasing. In 1934, following out the revolutionary traditions inherent in the Declaration of Independence, we Communists declare that the only way the workers will be freed from hunger, war and fascism is by doing what the Russian workers and the workers in Soviet China have done, and what the workers in all other capitalist countries are preparing to do—establish a revolutionary workers' government.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party, we must organize to overthrow the system of hunger and war. Unity of all workers on the basis of the fighting program of the Communist Party is the burning issue in this struggle. Men and women of the working class, Vote Communist! Join the Communist Party!