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Susan Green

Of Special Interest to Women

(29 September 1941)


From Labor Action, Vol. 5 No. 39, 29 September 1941, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).



Do you fondle an egg and think twice before you crack it?

The confinement of a hen is no more expensive now than before the imperialist war started. Why should the by-product cost almost FIVE CENTS EACH? But such is the stark white fact.

We are told that eggs are being shipped to England and to the starving Europeans. To what extent the victims of imperialist war – ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ENGLISH CHANNEL – are being fed by shipments from this country is a very well guarded secret.

BUT WE DO KNOW THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF EGGS. THERE ARE PLENTY OF THEM – AND THEY ARE PLENTY DEAR.

If ever there was an open-and-shut case for Mr. Henderson’s price-fixing attention. HERE IS ONE.

As was to be expected, Mr. HENDERSON IS A MUCH BETTER FRIEND TO THE WAR PROFITEERS THAN TO THE WORKING WOMAN.


To clothe a family this fall requires an amount of financial genius that even the resourceful working-class housewife does not posses.

Underwear, stockings, shoes, dresses, coats, suits, sweaters, hats bear price tags that make shudders go up ad down the back.

In stores that catered to the puny purse, and even in bargain basements, a look at the prices makes one wonder if one got into the wrong place by mistake.

But all the stores are accommodatingly offering facilities for the purchase of war bonds and stamps.

When the cold breezes begin to blow – JUST WRAP YOUR FAMILY IN PATRIOTISM.


And you haven’t seen the beginning of inflation yet.

You haven’t seen the beginning of consumer goods scarcity yet, either.

WHAT YOU SEE TODAY IS MERELY A DRESS REHEARSAL OF THE GRUESOME DRAMA ABOUT TO BE ENACTED.

But the planners in Washington are nothing if not comprehensive.

They foresee the time when a workingman’s wage will be able to buy much less, than today. Don’t think they are not providing for this emergency in Washington. In their own peculiar way they certainly are.

“Oh-ho!” they say down there. “If wages won’t buy much anyway, we might just as well relieve the workers of the trouble of taking all their pay home. Thus we will have more money to spend on this war that the workers don’t want.”

So next on the program will be FORCED SAVINGS. The bosses will be instructed to lift right out of the workers’ pay to turn over to the government – WHAT THE LAWMAKERS DECIDE THE WORKERS WON’T BE ABLE TO USE ANYWAY BECAUSE PRICES WILL BE TOO HIGH.


Readers of Labor Action may remember that the recent drive for old aluminum pots and pans was called a fake in this column.

It wasn’t the pots and pans tat the war-makers needed, BUT A PRO-WAR PUBLIC SENTIMENT – which does not exist now and did not exist then.

The high-pressure psychology behind the aluminum drive was: Get everybody to do something for the war. Then they will want to get into it on all fours. Get a poor woman to give an old pot and she will visualize that pot in a bomber, and. her boy at the wheel – and everything will be hunky-dory for the imperialist war-enthusiasts.

That the war frenzy did not materialize was amply demonstrated by the way in which the extension of the draft was squeezed through Congress BY ONE VOTE.

That the war program did not depend on your old old pot is now very definitely proved by a report from Washington. The United States will be producing the unheard-of amount of 1,500,000,000 pounds of aluminum per year – which is more than the combined output of the rest of the world.

Labor Action has a remarkably good record AT BEING RIGHT.


If you look in the right quarters, you can already see the beneficial effects of the “good neighbor policy.”

Mrs. Roosevelt has accepted the “invitation” of the Pan-American Coffee Bureau to broadcast a weekly program over a nation-wide hookup of the National Broadcasting Co. The bureau represents coffee growers in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Cuba and El Salvador.

How much the First Lady will cash in on this deal has not been made public. You can be sure she will get HERS. Her broadcasts, it was estimated about a year ago, totaled nearly a half million dollars.

“Oh, she gives it all to charity,” protests a wide-eyed admirer of the First Lady.

Maybe she does. I DON’T KNOW.

However, I do know that she cashes in on her reputation as “A GREAT PHILANTHROPIST” – as all philanthropists of the boss class do. They all bleed, copiously for the sake of humanity – don’t you know – while taking very good care of their own class interests.

In her broadcasts for the Coffee Bureau, Mrs. Roosevelt will be commenting on CURRENT EVENTS.

BOY! WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY THAT WILL BE TO MAKE PROPAGANDA FOR THE BOSSES – ALL UNDER THE CLOAK OF OF CHARITY!


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