First Branch of the Workmen’s Circle
Editorial
The Workmen’s Circle Call | May 1942
MAY DAY 1942 was not celebrated in the customary manner. There were no parades and few demonstrations, and there was little "excitement." And yet it is no sentimental gesture to say that the spirit of May Day was this year, as never before, in the hearts of millions of men and women in every country of the world. For the meaning and message of May Day has never been as manifest and as significant as it is today.
The spirit and substance of May Day betoken a world of peoples in brotherhood going beyond race and creed. The usual formula has it: beyond race and creed and class . And there lies the difference between those who turn their faces towards a new world and those who will not swerve from the old one. The real believers in May Day cannot conceive of human brotherhood as compatible with the existence of classes. Peoples and creeds, cultures and traditions, are bound to remain in a variegated and pluralistic world.
The brotherhood of man will bring about a harmonious relationship between peoples and cultures, their universal orchestration. But classes — economic and social — denote superiority and inferiority, wealth and poverty — and their existence is evidence not merely of difference but of inequality and injustice. The dream of human equality must not be yielded up; this dream of May Day in a war-torn world must become the reality of tomorrow's post-war May Day.
LABOR'S VICTORY PROGRAM
THE United Automobile Workers' Union has formulated a Victory Program that merits the attention of all friends of labor. At the same time it stands as a sharp rebuke to the foes of labor in Congress and in the reactionary press who are trying hard to use the present emergency to destroy labor's gains and to besmirch its name. The U. A.W. reiterates its pledge to refrain from striking during the war.
It promises to forego extra pay for Saturdays, Sundays and holidays and to accept payment for time over 40 hours a week in defense bonds. And of course it pledges itself once again to urge its members to increase production to the limit of their ability. But the U. A.W., quite rightly, does not expect its program to be a one-sided affair. It pleads for "equality of sacrifice." It asks for a $25,000 maximum income for individuals, for commensurability between wages and living costs, and for labor participation in war planning and post-war reconstruction. Who can deny that these requests are at once fair and statesmanlike? In evidence of their fairness on the maixmum income question, it need only be pointed
out that, while so much has been said and written against time and a half for overtime for workers, the salaries of corporation executives have gone up considerably. A recent issue of Your Investments carries a table comparing such salaries for 1940 and 1941. In one case the jump is from $131,463 to $306,193, in another case — to take a "smaller" salary — the increase is from $91,939 to $179,652. And yet labor is being accused of selfishness and greed and of impeding the war effort. The U. A.W. program is commendable. The proposals of the labor-baiters are class proposals. They are predicated on the assumption that during the emergency the rich shall get richer and the poor shall become poorer. This is, to say the least, undemocratic and unjust.
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“Without example and without guidance, these immigrant-workers laid the foundation of the largest and most important Jewish progressive structure in America.”
FIRST BRANCH OF THE WORKMEN'S CIRCLE
THIS YEAR marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of Branch 1. Since the Workmen's Circle as a federated organization was chartered 42 years ago, Branch 1 can be considered to be the mother of the Workmen's Circle. This is, indeed, a signal honor. It goes without saying that the founders of Branch 1 — simple Jewish immigrant-workers — were men of social vision and historic foresight. Without example and without guidance, these immigrant-workers laid the foundation of the largest and most important Jewish progressive structure in America. The genuine greatness of these men expressed itself in their ability to achieve a twofold synthesis. In the first place, they adopted the principle of mutual aid, of cooperative fraternalism right here and now and bound it up with the ideal of a completely reconstructed social order to be achieved as soon as possible but of necessity in the future. In the second place, they worked out a social and cultural program for the Jewish masses and then fitted that program into the larger pattern of American and world labor, thus aligning the Jewish masses with international progressive forces in the common fight for the freedom and emancipation of all mankind. To this twofold synthesis Branch 1, as well as the entire Workmen's Circle, has remained loyal throughout the years. It is because of this steadfastness and loyalty that the members of Branch 1 deserve our heartfelt congratulations on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this branch. POET OF PITY 'JT'HERE IS no doubt that Abraham Reisin is the most popular contemporary Yiddish writer. In the whole of modern Yiddish literature there is only one name better known than that of Abraham Raisin; it is Sholem Aleichem, the pen-name of the beloved humorist, Sholem Abramovitch. Reisin is a poet and story-teller. His poems and ( Continued on Page 10)
EDITORIALS ( Continued from Page 3)
stories are of the common people, the workaday people with their sorrows, their joys, their goodness, their hopes. And they are suffused with wonderful sunlight, with a deep sense of pity, humble loving-kindness. He is truly a poet of pity and love. His poems have a touching folk-quality, and there is not a single workers' chorus that has not learned to sing many of them. Reisin has been writing for fifty years — writing song and story for workaday people. It is appropriate that the Workmen's Circle should pay homage to him on this occasion and wish him many, many more years of life, well-being and creativeness.