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From Labor Action, Vol. X No. 6, 11 February 1946, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Reva Craine, our press manager, has invited me to address the readers of Labor Action through her Press Column on the subscription drive which began on February 1. It is an opportunity I gladly take because it is, to my way of thinking, as important an issue as any in the world, and a good deal more important than most.
Labor Action is not merely the paper of those who actually write its columns, mail it, and so forth. It is, in a far more fundamental sense, YOUR paper. And we feel that the responsibility of circulating it (and writing for it, too) should be shared by us collectively, and “us" includes every reader.
There is a need for Labor Action that cannot be filled by any other paper. In explanation we stand on our record of vigorous, uncompromising intervention on every issue of the class struggle against the bosses. Labor Action was the first, and only, paper to publish a revolutionary socialist manifesto against the war. Labor Action is the only paper in the United States that ponsistently champions the interests of labor – veterans, Negroes, men, women – against ALL the imperialisms of the world.
Those of you who are perhaps familiar only with the last few issues will nevertheless have seen ample demonstration of its unswerving devotion to the cause of the working class. Thousands of you who received Labor Action for the first time on a picket line in Detroit, Reading, Lackawanna, Harrison or any one of a dozen places saw in Labor Action a paper that did more than give unstinting support to the strike actions that have swept the country.
Yes, more! We do not merely “cover” the strikes as a capitalist newspaper would. Each strike struggle is ours. Every picket line has Labor Action marching with it in spirit.
We have campaigned for a democratically coordinated strike strategy council to unify the various strike actions. We have campaigned, as we are in the greatest part of the issue you are now reading, to organize for political action as well as for economic action. In every respect we have shown bias – yes, bias! For we are biased and proud of it. We are biased on the side of labor, we are out to destroy capitalism and to replace it by a system of society in which workers, black or white, of any national origin, rule according to the needs of society as a whole.
To be sure, we have severely criticized the labor leaders while pledging our 100 per cent support to the struggles they lead. That too we understand as our duty. When the policies of a union leader injure the interests of labor either in the immediate or longer sense. We say so. We discuss such policies, analyze them, explain wherein they are wrong, and in opposing them, give our view as to what is right. We do not hide from any issue of the class struggle, but enter into it vigorously as socialists, as unionists, as militant members of the labor movement.
Ours is a paper for veterans, for Negroes, for the oppressed everywhere, That is why we ask you to help us spread it.
We’ll speak of our plans for a larger paper in a few weeks when these plans are worked out. In the meantime, let us put Labor Action into the hands of 5,000 new worker-subscribers by May 1.
The first three day of the drive brought in over 150 new subs. That’s good as a beginning. But only as a beginning. We take it for granted that Workers Party branches will swing into a real sub-getting stride ...
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