The first National Hunger march in December, 1931 had four columns involved, the second in 1932 had eight, with 4 from western states and numerous sub-columns. Here are reports from the first days of the March as the separate columns made their way across country to gather in Washington D.C. on December 4th to demand relief during the Great Depression.

‘News of the Hunger March Columns’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 9 No. 281. November 24, 1932.

COLUMN 1 NORTHWEST

MILWAUKEE, Wis., Nov. 23. Column 1 of the National Hunger March, from the Northwest, is to reach Milwaukee tonight and spend the night here. Big delegations of Milwaukee workers will meet the marchers this afternoon in West Allis and conduct them on into Milwaukee.

Win Relief, Build March. ROCKFORD, Ill. Nov. 23. A successful united front conference here Friday and a series of local struggles has resulted in winning from the city government flour from the welfare station and much better treatment. They have mobilized many workers’ organizations to collect for the National March, and ten delegates are elected to Join Column 1. Tomorrow at 10 a.m. there will be a city-wide demonstration to send them off. They have instructions to ask Hoover: “How many workers have a chicken in the pot this year on Thanksgiving Day?” The basis of this movement is the Unemployed Council which is growing at the rate of 50 a week lately. The single unemployed men held a meeting at the Blake School soup kitchen and flop house Friday, threw out an official of the “Relief” who demanded the meeting be stopped, and elected a delegate to go to Washington. This shows how preparations for the march lead to better organization of the jobless, and win more relief.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio, Nov. 23. Dan Jackson, militant Negro worker, resident of Hoover City was elected by a group of workers as a delegate to Washington, D.C., on the National Hunger March. Dan Jackson will represent the entire Hoover City, which has a population of over 150 steel workers driven to this garbage dump to live because of unemployment. A great mass reception has been planned in Youngstown to greet the National Hunger marchers when they arrive in the city on Wednesday, Nov. 30th. The demonstration takes place at Watt and Federal St. at 5 P.M. on Wednesday. Three feeding stations have been set up to feed the delegates. The stations are located at: The Zora Club Room, 525 West Rayen Ave.; The Icor Center, 307 North Walnut St., and the Workers Center, 334 E. Federal St. The Unemployed Council appeals to all organizations, especially the South Slavs, the Jewish workers, and the Hungarian workers to come to these feeding stations to volunteer services to help cook, feed, and take care of the hunger marchers.

Mass Welcome in Waukegan. WAUKEGAN, Ill., Nov. 23. The Unemployed Council here is growing and is busy collecting funds, food and blankets for the National Hunger Marchers. Column 1 goes through here tomorrow at 1:30 p.m., and will be welcomed at a mass meeting outdoors if the weather permits, otherwise in Workers Hall. The city council heard a delegation demanding gasoline and oil for the March, but refused to vote on it.

MIDWEST COLUMNS 2, 3, 5

DENVER, Colo., Nov. 23. The first detachment of Column 2 of the National Hunger March came into Denver last night, a whole day ahead of schedule. It was a car with delegates from Oakland, Cal. Other cars are strung out along the road an hour or so apart and will all be here by this morning. There are now 38 delegates in this column, and Denver workers are rushing carloads of food and extra drivers to the cars at the end of the procession. The Southwestern Column, from the Southwest, left Colorado Springs at 2:30 p.m. yesterday under the leadership of Charles Guynn, who joined there with 15 delegates from southern Colorado. There are now also 38 delegates in this group, which forms Column 3 of the National March. Column 3 reached Denver last night and all delegates then in town were given a rousing mass welcome at the Carpenters’ Hall by the Denver workers. As soon as late arrivals get in and cars are repaired, the consolidated Columns 2 and 3 start eastward, to make their first stop at Burlington. In Kansas City, Nov. 26, these two columns will be joined by Column 5 from Texas and Oklahoma. A mass delegation went to the city council Monday and demanded abolition of the vagrancy law, no evictions or turning off of light, water or gas. The city officials rejected the demands, but organization. building up of the unemployed council and a united front struggle to win the demands is under way.

New Hall in Kansas City. KANSAS CITY, Mo., Nov. 23.-Acting on the orders of the police department, the owners of Defenders’ Hall refused the hall to the Hunger Marchers although they had previously agreed to rent it. Besides this the police are active against the workers involved in Hunger March activity. Three have been arrested during the last week. One worker, Sanchez, has been railroaded to the city farm. The greeting and mass meeting will be held Nov. 26; the marchers will leave on the morning of the 27th for St. Louis. In the delegation of marchers from Kansas City there will be a good representation of Negro, youth and women.

MENA, Ark., Nov. 23. A new departure in college activity will occur when on Nov. 30, Commonwealth College acts as host to the National Hunger Marchers as they pass through this region. Classes will be dismissed for this event so that students and marchers may profit to the greatest extent from their mutual contact. Several Commonwealth students will proceed to Washington with the marchers.

COLUMN 4 WEST, SOUTHWEST

DES MOINES, Ia., Nov. 23. City and county police here came out in force and tried to route the National Hunger Marchers of Column through here without letting them appear at the mass welcome arranged for them. However, the police were outwitted. The cops met them outside the city limits and rerouted them through the outskirts of the city, bought them 25 gallons of gasoline and left them. Des Moines workers went to the county line with four cars and brought all the marchers back into the city and to the hall for a big meeting and supper and send-off greetings, declarations of solidarity, etc. The police donated the gasoline to avoid the mass meeting, and the meeting was held anyway. The column left on schedule, with recruits from Des Moines, this morning for Davenport.

Preparing In Pittsburgh. PITTSBURGH, Pa., Nov. 23. Unemployed Councils and block committees of Pittsburgh have been holding mass meetings to elect the delegates for the National Hunger March that comes through on Dec. 1 on the way to Washington, D.C. Columns 1 and 4 join here on that date. Thursday morning a delegation of 75 from one of the Block Committees on the Hill went to the local Welfare Department with a list of 42 cases of families and single men needing relief, facing evictions, or having their gas, electricity or water shut off. Action was immediately obtained in a number of cases. Today, a mass delegation will present the case of the 150,000 unemployed workers of Pittsburgh. Besides presenting the local demands, the delegation will demand that the city feed and house the 2,000 marchers who come through Pittsburgh. Tag Days will be held on Nov. 25 and Nov. 26. The main stations for the Tag Days will be (1) on the Hill, 1927 Webster Ave.; (2) North Side, 805 James St.; (3) South Side, 30 S. 11th St.

COLUMN 7

UTICA, N. Y., Nov. 23. The mayor of Utica showed plainly when called on by a delegation of the unemployed council, that he is afraid of the effect on unemployed workers here of the speeches of the marchers if he allows a mass meeting in the city when they come through, Nov. 28. So far he has refused this permit. There is good reason for the jobless in Utica to feel resentment against the city administration. Some of them get no relief, and the others get $2 to $4 worth of groceries and 5 bushels of coal every two weeks. There will be a big demonstration before the Common Council meeting Nov. 30 to demand cash relief, payment of rent by the city, and freeing of the six unemployed arrested July 9, as well as endorsement of the National Hunger March demands. On Monday at 4 p.m. there will be a mass meeting in Redman’s Hall, West Side, at 8 p.m. and at the same time on the East Side, a mass meeting in Patriarca Hall, to greet the National Marchers. Tag days for the support of the march will be held Nov. 26, regardless of permit.

Schenectady Hunger Hearing SCHENECTADY, N.Y., Nov. 23. The Unemployed Council calls an open hearing on hunger, Saturday, at 7:30 p.m. at the Labor Temple on Clinton St., to expose conditions here and elect delegates to the National Hunger March. The delegates will have a send-off affair Nov. 27 at Redman’s Hall. Milton Stone, National Hunger March organizer will speak. The General Electric has laid off another thousand workers. Relief is being cut here.

COLUMN 8 NORTHEASTERN

BOSTON, Mass., Nov. 23. Boston workers are preparing a big send-off for the New England delegates of Column 8 of the National Hunger March which starts here Sunday morning. The send-off meeting will be Saturday night at 8 p.m. at the Municipal Auditorium, Brookline and Shawmut Ave. Use of this hall was won from the city government by the mass pressure of the Boston jobless. The marchers will leave Boston at 9:30 Sunday. Following is the route of the marchers from Boston to New Haven: Leaving Boston Sunday, Nov. 27, 9:30 a.m. from the Boston Common, the march goes through Dedham (arriving at 10:30 a.m.) Leaving Dedham it arrives in Norwood for lunch at 11 a.m. and leaves at 12:30. Arrives at Walpole at 1 p.m., Wrentham 1:30 p.m., W. Atteleboro 2 p.m., Pawtucket, R.I. 3 p.m. and arrives in Providence at 4 p.m. In Providence the hunger marchers stay the night of Nov. 27th. Leaving Providence at 8 a.m. on Nov. 28, the march goes through Putnam and Willimantic, Conn., arriving at Hartford at 12 noon and leaving at 2 p.m. Leaving Hartford at 2 p.m. the hunger marchers arrive in New Haven at 6 p.m. and spend the night. The next day they leave for New York.

“Poison” Scare. Boston workers are getting another dose of headline-shrieking hysteria, intended to scare workers from supporting the National Hunger March going to Washington. Boston newspapers have been carrying headlines for two days now regarding a mysterious “white-powder found in the water pitchers of the judges in the Middlesex Superior Court in East Cambridge, Mass.” This is being played up as a “poison plot” of the reds, as usual. It is significant that the mysterious white powder supposedly found in the water pitchers has not been analysed (since there is nothing to analyse). The Unemployed Councils, of Massachusetts declare that such tactics will not succeed in disrupting the support of thousands of Mass. workers to the National Hunger March.

Preparations in N. Y. State. Most energetic preparations are being made for the National Hunger Marchers of Column 8 and 8-A (Hudson River Valley line joining Col. 8 at New York City) in the cities of New York State. A committee consisting of Louise Morrison, representing the National Committee of the Unemployed Councils, and Ruth Bennett and Irving Wagner, representing Westchester County unemployed councils, has visited the mayors of Port Chester, White Plains, New Rochelle, and Mt. Vernon, the route of the New England delegates of Column 8, and demanded the right to hold foot parades of the marchers through the towns, to hold open air demonstrations, etc., and tag days for the march. In each case the mayor, city welfare head and commissioner of public works saw the committee. In each case the demand for foot parades and open air meetings was won. In White Plains the city property in the heart of town will be used for the meeting. In Mt. Vernon. a permit is given for a tag day Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and all workers and sympathizers with the demands of the marchers are urged to come to 421 South Eighth Ave., for their cans and help collect funds for march expenses. In the other cities the matter of tag days was taken under advisement and an answer promised later. In Yonkers, through which both Column 8 and 3-A will go, an answer to similar demands was promised today. Demands were also made for supper for the marchers here.

ALBANY, N.Y., Nov. 23. A mass meeting to greet the marchers of Column 8-A (Hudson River Valley Column to join Column 8 in New York City) will be held here in Engelman’s Hall, Nov. 27. The marchers will be given a send off by a mass meeting in Clinton Square when they leave, Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. The city government of Ossining has issued a permit for a parade of the marchers of Column 8-A and city workers and jobless, when it goes through here, and stops for lunch, Nov. 29. Permit is granted for an open air meeting in Poughkeepsie when the march goes through.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n281-NY-nov-24-1932-DW-LOC.pdf