The Daily Worker

The Crisis Deepens—Jobless Increase—and Capitalists Refuse Real Relief

IN spite of all lies to the contrary, even the official U. S. Government liars of the so-called "Employment" Service, admitted Saturday that employment fell off in July. On Friday, the government had already admitted that wage cuts were spreading.

The very fact that now, in August, the capitalist demagogues are already confessing that the winter will bring unheard of suffering to the workers, is a confession that all their palaver about a "recovery" are false.

One has only to look at facts to see that the crisis is deepening.

The N. Y. Post of August 29, runs such headlines as the following:

"Stagnant Trade""Steel Mills' Production Dwindles, Wage Cuts Expected"-"Auto Industry in Weak Condition"-and, along with all this and much more, the "optimistic" statement that-"Normal Level of Employment Is Seen by 1933."

So workers must realize that the crisis is still deepening; and that the best capitalists can offer them is the hope that by two years from now there might be better employment! But now, today, tomorrow and in the visible future, unemployment is increasing!

What is the attitude of the capitalists and their government toward this unanswerable fact? It is the attitude of refusal to do one damned thing to provide the relief really necessary to prevent mass starvation, misery and death among the workers; but a refusal concealed behind a thousand and one varieties of hypocritical "relief plans"-not one of which is even intended to do more than to "prevent revolution", as an occasional frankness on the part of some capitalists admits.

Foremost among these hypocritical "plans" is, of course, the Hoover "Gifford Commission", set up deliberately to prevent relief, particularly anything in the line of Unemployment Insurance. But the past week has seen competition in demagogy by the Democrats, Governor Roosevelt of New York having taken the headlines away from Hoover with a noisy boast of providing $20,000,000 "for unemployment relief" throughout the state.

An examination of this "wonderful" scheme quickly shows its hypocrisy. "As much of the money as can be used to employ persons on public works", that is to say--the $20,000,000 will go as much as possible, to grafting contractors. And how far even this will go can be seen by the statement of the N. Y. City director of the Free Employment Agency, that there are 1,000,000 jobless in New York City alone!

More: "No money must be turned over to any beneficiary except in payment for work"-comes back as a boomerang to the liars about "forced labor" in the Soviet Union, to remind workers that capitalism stands with one leg on forced labor and the other on forced starvation!

Workers must now prepare to battle for bread, for the lives of themselves and their loved ones. They have no other way out but struggle-struggle for a lump sum in cash for Winter Relief, for immediate emergency relief and for Unemployment Insurance.