The daily worker. [volume], November 29, 1924, Magazine Supplement, Page 7, Image 11

About The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
How Little? ...
This question is not a favorite one
amongst the bourgeoisie, except when
put to one of us out-of-job stiffs in
search of a master. To ask a mer
chant how little he’ll take for one of
his choice adulterated wares, is to in
sult him terribly and to incur his
bouncer’s ill will forever, so that it
becomes dangerous for us again to
enter his emporium of bargains and
the arts. Also to inquire in a dulcet
voice in front of a theater box office
how little is the price of admission is
to meet with haughty scorn and an up
tilted nose. So with our contributions
to the churchly collection box as it
swings close to our gaping eyes of a
Sunday morning. We are supposed to
put in all our wad or the biggest part
of it and no questions asked or an
swered. When we are arrested for
indulging too freely in free speech and
blocking the bootleggers’ traffic, we
should not ask how little, judge? That
would be contempt of court besides
our other crimes and misdemeanors.
However, we are forced too often
to put this unwelcome query and to
those we love best, owing to the h.
c. 1. and the 1. g. w. (low going wage).
Friend wife goes thru our pants and
finds the usual vacuum there and then
kindly requests us to get busy and
fetch in a weekly wage of sin and
misery, so that she can clothe and
feed the family, purohase school
books, pay renf, car fare, gas and
light bills, water rent, and the month
ly dues of the Workers Party, and
the campaign stamps and literature,
with a quarter for the open forum;
we scratch our heads and say: Just
how little can you get along on? And
when she replies that it takes ten dol
lars and forty-nine cents per diem to
run our small shebang of six souls and
keep us in good standing in our party,
we groan and ask: "Now Just where in
h do you suppose we are go
ing to raise that amount from now
on to the revolution?”
Mother replies voluminously and
profusely that if she had to depend on
me . . . Me . . . ME! . . .
alone, the head of the family, she’d
never get to see half or a quarter of
that much. All she wants . . .all
she expects . . . all she is looking
for, is for me to get a job, any sort
of a job, whereby I can earn wages,
regular wages, so she Can know what
to depend on and she will, with the
help of the older children, her needle
and her dogs, dig up the rest.
“All the ten dollars and forty-nine
cents ?” I ask her innocently and mean
ing no offense. And then the storm
breaks, comrades; the real storm, all
others shrink into nothing in compari
son with it I have been thru Missouri
with the mules in a ford stuck in
the mud; I have been in Michigan, In
diana, and Illinois when the buzzards
roared down the lake and the ther
mometer struck 20 below zero; I
have been in Kansas and Nebraska
when the cyclones made us hunt for
cellars and none in sight; I have been
on some pretty high mountains, and
in some damned low valleys, in
cluding Death Valley and Hell’s Half
Acre, and yet I have never experienc
ed half the severities that I got in
reply to my simple innocuous family
query mentioned above when put in
a calm and soothing manner to my
better half. You see, she is only half j
radical; she says she believes as I j
do, but she clings to her old bourgeois i
vocabulary. It is rich in all kinds i
of expletives, too, I’ll tell the world, j
But then I’m used to her and to hard j
words too; for you see, I'm a prole- i
letarianized bourgeois, and that is to j
say I’m a pretty hard boiled mem- i
ber of the Communist Party.
Since the world war, I've had an i
alibi. I say now, "Mother, what’s the \
use of complaining? We didn’t loee j
any of our children in the war; all j
we lost was our real estate and our j
bourgeois ideals; they were all the j
better lost. Let's get busy and figure j
if we can't get along on less than $2 i
and ten cents a day each; or if we ]
can’t, then try and devise ways and j
means to raise that sum without steal
ing, or incurring the unwelcome at
tentions of the police!”
And so we settled down to hard cold \
figures, and take a run around j
amongst the industrial stores and lay j
in a second-hand wardrobe for pen
nies that would cost dollars on Broad
way; drive Lizzie thru the wholesale
vegetable and fruit market and col
lect a week’s supply of edibles for half
or quarter what they cost at the
neighborhood stores, go along the rail
road track and load up old ties thrown
away by the section boss, for our
fuel, pick up books and magazines
cast off by thriftless members of the
bourgeoisie, and settle down to mak
ing over furs, furniture and fol de
rols for foolish folks, who pay us well
for their silly fancies, including our
high-bred Pekingese dogs. You see,
when it comes to a show down, we
are loaded for the bourgeoisie; we
buy by the rule, how little? and sell
by the formula, how much?
No; you’ll not find our names on
the income tax list, or on any other
one for that matter. We pay enough
indirect taxes to keep a couple more
small children in board and round, and
so we feel we are doing our share to
wards supporting the bourgeois gov
ernment and the Wall Street hounds.
It is a waste of energy to have to
do aU the small contemptible tricks 1
and turns we are forced to in order
to raise our $10.49. We are a well-
H §|
| This Worker This Worker |
Leads a helluva life! Qets a “kick" out of living! U
HPor him the world is the blah. For him the world is worthwhile, |ijg
HE HE
has no interest in Labor. has news every day of the work- iff
He knows nothing about it. ers ’ world -
He has never joined the con- He is well info ™ed.
scious ranks of his class. He is in the ranks of the Labor M
movement.
I Os course— ° f cour,e — |
„ , , He has heaved this brick
= "ou can see he does not read
g back to
| “The National Labor tyily” THE DAILY WORKER §
jg| 11t3 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, 111.
— ,r ' ~j/
~ SO-t#zuvr/4& /2.00 SmcnlU j =
:niPTION TO BUILD "TT i I
.y WORKER | | |
. STATE |
illlilllllllilillliiillllllillHHHilllllllllißlllliUlHliiiHlllittllilinillßfliailllllillllHllllliliiißiiillilß
educated bunch and full of creative
power and might be of hugh service
to our country if allowed to exercise
our talents free from the petty wor
ries of sordid bourgeois cares. But, ,
no! We must stoop to the smallest
subterfuges and devices to raise
enough money to live in comparative
comfort'and decency, and expend all
our time or the most of it in employ- ,
ments beneath contempt in order to i
get along as well as the better sort i
of domestic animals do. If we did
not put up a heroic and heart-breaking
struggle against odds, we would be
submerged instantly. The moment
we- lose courage we are gone. While
we seem to boast on how little we can
get along on, yet we realize that Is
nothing to brag about. One’s living
should be gained almost without thot
or effort in these prodigious days of
mighty machine production. One
should be able to live well and even
luxiously on a couple hours’ work a i
day; and have the remainder of his
time for art, science, literature, music,
philosophy and the higher walks of
human life. Russia is slowly forg
ng ahead in that direction; and when
she begins to show the world how
to live, how well she can live and
7
By Robin E. Dunbar
how much she can spend and still
have a surplus, then the conundrum
of our needing more than we can
raise in spite of all sorts of ingenious
makings, and savings in order to
cling together as a family, will solve
itself. The bourgeoisie can’t be ex
pected to embrace Russia's example;
they’ll have to be forced to do so
by us Communists; who are only ask
ing ourselves how little? now so we
can answer to the roll call of how
much? hereafter.
BOOKS FOR THINKERS
SCIENCE, LITERATURE
ECONOMICS, HISTORY,
Any Book in Print at Once.
Jimmie Higgins Book Shop
127 University Place
NEW YORK CITY
A Workers Party Book Shop
Learn** LZ%r'IDO
16-page pamphlet, giving outline of
language, shewing He superiority over
Esperanto, ate., sent free.
The Workers Ido Federation
Room 5, 805 Jemee St., N. 8.
PITTSBURGH, PA.