The Daily Worker

Force Real Relief!

After months of the most shameless lying, during which Hoover and Tammany united to ignore and belittle the ghastly growth of unemployment, during which the ridiculous figure of 200,000 for the whole of New York State was given as the maximum number of jobless, Edward C. Rybicki, director of the fake "employment office" of New York City, is forced to admit that there are 800,000 unemployed in the city alone.

It is the same 800,000 unemployed of New York City for which Sam Nessin of the Unemployed Council delegation demanded adequate immediate relief and jobless insurance before the New York City Board of Estimates last Thursday and was set upon by official thugs and beaten at command of Mayor Walker.

Every worker should understand that the savage attack on the Unemployed Delegation was made precisely because the Tammany grafters are determined to do nothing adequate if at all for the 800,000 jobless workers and their families now starving in New York City.

Every worker should understand that the $1,000,000 frightened out of Tammany supposedly "for the unemployed" will be used for nothing but to give some few hundred Tammany hangers-on a soft job for the winter. That is all that anyone can make out of proposals about "chopping wood in the parks," as a method to "relieve unemployment."

Such empty gestures are intended to fool the individuals among the hundreds of thousands and make them think that they will be the "lucky ones." But the workers are learning, must learn, a mass unity in fighting for something more than sops and idle gestures.

There can be no substitute for the demands raised by the Unemployment Insurance Bill proposed by the Communist Party; there can only be adequate relief from municipal and state agencies equal to such insurance until it is forced through by the mass fight of the whole working class.

Only by fighting will even the smallest concession be made by the capitalists. For this reason, and to put Communists in Congress so that a real battle can be put up there for Unemployment Insurance, all workers should vote Communist as well as prepare themselves by organization for future struggle to force real relief.

Jobless and Employed Unite!

The so-called "stagger" system that Hoover is recommending as a "remedy" for unemployment deserves the widest exposure possible among the workers, and the maximum effort to unite the employed and jobless in defense of their common interest which this "stagger" system attacks.

Workers will now understand why it is that the Communist Party has for nearly a year insisted that both employed and jobless must unite in common struggle.

To make it understood simply, one may say that where two men are now working full time and one is jobless, the "stagger" system proposes to "divide up the work" so that all three get part-time work.

But also part-time pay.

To anyone who is not a worker, and possibly to many workers also, the deceitful nature of this proposal is not at first visible. It looks "fair." It says: "Everyone shall share alike." But there is more than one openly anti-working class trick hidden in it.

"Everyone" shall share "alike" but only among the workers.

The bosses give up not a penny of their profits. And let us remember that during September American industries paid the capitalist stockholders $475,000,000 in dividends, which is $136,000,000 more than they paid in September last year.

The bosses thus propose that they shall give up nothing of their growing profits, but that the employed members of the working class shall contribute one-third of their wages by part-time work, the third unemployed member of the three mentioned above being also put on part time.

The second big deceit in this "stagger" system is the idea put forth alongside the proposal for "dividing up the work," that this scheme is just a temporary thing, "to tide the workers over" until better times come and "prosperity" returns.

Let us get it well fixed in the minds of all workers that the same level of "prosperity" as the past can never again be brought back under capitalism. That any "recovery" that can take place will leave millions of jobless still unable to find full time jobs.

Thus we see that the proposal to "stagger" the jobs and "divide up the work," is a proposal that the whole working class shall be forced to accept a standard of living permanently reduced by at least one-third. And this is put out by Hoover, who claims to be against lowering the standard of living!

Everywhere, the militant workers must carry the exposure of this scheme to the masses of workers. Everywhere these masses must be shown that the "stagger" system is hostile to their interests whether they be employed at present or unemployed, since the present unemployed worker could, under the Hoover Plan, never hope for a job which would give him more than the most miserable wage.

And everywhere, the workers, employed and unemployed, must be rallied to fight against the "stagger" system, to strike against this general wage cut of one-third their wages, and unite in the fight to force, as against this reduction of living standard, the establishment of adequate Unemployment Insurance as proposed by the Communist Party.

Be Warned! Vote Communist!

The New York Journal of Commerce on Monday remarked upon the fact that Hoover would be "politically doomed" if he did not, in view of the oncoming elections, make some pretense of "activity" concerning "relieving unemployment."

This should be a warning to all workers to understand that, when Hoover's statements and all the folderol of "committees" and "plans" are blazoned forth in the boss newspapers, that Hoover, and in fact all the capitalists, are making this show of concern right now solely to keep the workers thinking that by supporting the political parties of capitalism, they will be "getting something"—only to keep the workers from voting Communist.

If this warning of the Journal of Commerce is not enough to show workers that the hubbub over "unemployment relief" is just so much pre-election hokum, and that after election the capitalists and their government deliberately intend to make a savage attack on the workers, we ask them to read the following remark by Dr. Virgil Jordan, economist of the McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., made in a speech to the National Electric Manufacturers' Association in New York Tuesday night:

"Those who are leading it (the campaign to cut wages), will probably defer their outright attempts to liquidate labor and lower American standards of living till after the November elections."

We thus hear from the lips of spokesmen of the bosses, the warning that:

The "employment relief" schemes now filling the capitalist press are consciously intended to fool the workers and keep them from voting Communist and following the leadership of the Communist Party.

The bosses are holding up the heaviest attack on wages and living standards until after the election, to keep the workers from being persuaded to vote Communist to defend their interests.

Be warned! Only by fighting can the workers, employed or jobless, defend their interest. Fight for immediate relief and Unemployment Insurance! Organize and strike against wage cuts! Vote Communist to place heroic working class fighters, Communists, in Congress and state offices to rouse the whole working class to battle!

The fear of the bosses is that the workers' votes may put Communists in Congress. Let us do our damnedest to elect Communists for every office! All out! Vote Communist!