The
League for Industrial Democracy (LID) was established in 1905. Early
members of the organization included Upton Sinclair,
Clarence Darrow, Jack
London, Walter Lippman and William
Walling. The LID were advocates of a planned economy and socialism.
At the time, the LID was seen as the American equivalent of the British
Fabian Society.
In December, 1930, the League for Industrial Democracy in New
York City established The Unemployed magazine. The 32 page
paper was priced 10 cents per issue but the unemployed could buy it
for 5 cents a copy. Edited by Edward Levinson and Mary Fox, contributors
included Norman Thomas, Upton
Sinclair, Morris Hillquit, A.
J.Muste, John Dewey, Robert
Lovett, Daniel Hoan, Frank
Murphy and H.N. Brailsford.
Illustrators who supplied drawings and cartoons included Art
Young, Boardman Robinson,
Edmund Duffy, Denys Wortman, John
Sloan, Daniel Fitzpatrick, H.
J. Glintenkamp, Charles Dana Gibson,
Reginald Marsh, Cornelia
Barnsand Rollin Kirby. The Unemployed
was a strong critic of Herbert Hoover
and his Republican Party administration.
When Franklin Roosevelt was elected
as president the paper ceased publication.
Helen Keller: With their
hands they have builded great
cities and they cannot be sure of a roof over their own heads.
Franklin
Booth, The Unemployed (February, 1931)
(1)
Norman Thomas, The Profit System and
Unemployment, The Unemployed (December, 1930)
Power driven
machinery makes it possible to support great populations in plenty.
It has changed the basis of our civilization from one of enforced
frugality to abundance. In spite of its mismanagement it has shortened
hours and in many cases lightened the burden of monotonous and back-breaking
toil. Yet under the the profit system the story of the progress of
machinery is literally written in tears and blood. And for every advance
step in technological progress the under dog has paid in the loss
of his job.
This is true because we have never asked: how can we use machinery
to provide more abundant goods and increase leisure for everybody?
Instead the profit seeking owners of factories have said: how can
we increase profits? It is easy to how that in the long run machinery
by making it possible to have more things makes possible more jobs
as well as shorter hours of labor. But men eat in the short run, and
in the short run the boss introduces a new machine in the hope of
making an immediately greater profit, which profit is very often realized
only by cutting down his payroll. The employer who does this is not
a villain. Under the profit system his business is to make profit.
He can't help it if that means giving some men the bitter leisure
of unemployment and speeding up others.
Only planned production for use, the abolition of parasitic ownership
and the increase of spending power in the hands of the masses of the
workers will end unemployment. I do not say that this way to end unemployment
is easy. In the long run it will have to take account of the whole
world and not merely just the United States. The final answer to unemployment
and to poverty is intelligent international Socialism. There is no
other way. Immediate remedies for some of the suffering of unemployment
will be good not only in themselves but because they help our progress
toward this goal.
(2)
Daniel Hoan, the socialist mayor of Milwaukee,
wrote an article about the economy in The Unemployed (Spring,
1931)
Our large
industrial cities have been the greatest beneficiaries and the worst
sufferers from this transition to a complex mechanization of our economic
life.
The machine has not only transformed our social environment but has
solved the age-old struggle to produce enough to properly feed, house
and clothe the human family. In the past families periodically visited
the peoples of the world, taking a toll of millions of lives. The
machine has multiplied production on the farm and in the factory ten-fold.
The problem is no longer one of famine due to under-production. The
machine has changed all of this to one of danger of starvation because
we can produce too much.
The cause of this period of depression is deep-seated, not superficial.
It lies in the fact that the machine has been made an instrument of
exploitation of the workers for private gain, and not the means of
relieving their burden, shortening hours of work, and allowing more
leisure for recreation and the enjoyment of the fruits of their toil.
The machine has enslaved the workers, instead of the workers becoming
the masters of the machine.
The country cannot be restored to its status of artificial prosperity
which followed the world war by superficial remedies. A temporary
cure can be effected, and Milwaukee and other cities have taken the
initial step toward such a cure. But full rehabilitation will not
come until the core of the situation is touched.
(3)
Frank Murphy, the mayor of Detroit,
wrote about what he was doing about looking after the poor
inThe Unemployed (Spring,
1931)
The time
has come when widespread unemployment has ceased to be the concern
of one group. It is neither the affair solely of the manufacturer
nor of the unemployed. There was a time when the contractual relationship
between the employer and the employee was supposed to be none of the
public's business. That time has passed. Today the stability of employment
is the direct business of every taxpayer and every citizen, because
they are responsible for the support and maintenance of those who
are of jobs. It is the public who must foot the bills and it is the
public who most interest itself in the question which has become,
not a class, but a social issue.
The first consideration of a widespread unemployment situation is
a practical, satisfactory relief program. The mapping out of such
a program is not an easy matter. For example, in Detroit there are
1,500,000 souls but only 300,000 taxpayers. The taxpayers have been
providing heat, rent, light, food and clothes for 45,000 destitute
families, the breadwinners of which, in the main, are employed in
factories that for tax reasons border on the city limits - just outside,
and do not contribute to the support of their former employees.
12,000 homeless men are cared for daily in two lodging houses, one
on the west side, donated by the Fisher Brothers, one on the east
side, donated by the Studebaker Corporation. 1,800,000 meals have
been given and 350,000 nights's lodgings supplied. Two meals are served,
each meal consisting of a well balanced, sufficient diet. Ninety thousand
lunches have been given to the school children of the unemployed.
At present 8,000 children daily are being fed in school. One hundred
and twenty-five thousand person have been outfitted with clothes by
the clothing bureau; 700 homeless women are being cared for in private
homes or small institutions like the YWCA or League of Catholic Women.
But the most satisfactory part of the work is the establishment of
an Employment Bureau which has given out 21,000 jobs.
Daniel
Fitzpatrick, The Unemployed
(Spring, 1931)
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