Nina Spies, widow of Haymarket martyr August Spies, participates in a Chicago Hunger March nearly fifty years after Haymarket.

‘10,000 Chicago Hunger Marchers Descend on World Fair’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 19 No. 210. September 1, 1933.

Hunger March Meet Held in Front of the Chicago World Fair-10,000 March for 25% Relief Raise

CHICAGO, Ill., Aug. 30-A Hunger March of 10,000 Negro and white workers to City Hall ending with a demonstration in front of the Century of Progress, took place here today. Six weeks ago a similar demonstration at the same place was broken up by the police.

The marchers elected a broad delegation of several organizations headed by Karl Lockner, leader of the Unemployed Council, to present the demands of the Hunger March to the city officials. Lockner later reported to the demonstration that Corporation Counsel Secton, who met the delegation, agreed to a meeting Friday at the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission, 10 La Salle St. This meeting is to give practical realization of Secton’s promises to improve some of the conditions of the unemployed.

Demands of the marchers were: Immediate 25 per cent increase in relief; adoption of the Workers’ City Relief Ordinance; betterment of flophouse conditions and endorsement of the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill.

Liberty Square, which directly fronts the Century of Progress, was massed with workers. Speakers addressing them had splendid opportunity to point to the Century of Progress which under NIRA reduces the workers to the lowest levels of starvation and misery.

The speakers included, David Poindexter, Negro leader of the Unemployed Council; Sullivan of the Workers Unemployed League; Clarence Hathaway, editor of the Daily Worker; Bill Gebert of the Communist Party, and Nina Spies, aged widow of one of the Haymarket riot victims.

The Federation of the Unemployed addressed a letter to the Chicago Workers Committee on Unemployment proposing a joint delegation to present the demands at the Relief Commission meeting on Friday. A large number of workers from the Borders Committee participated in the march, although officially Borders refused to participate.

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. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of original issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n210-sep-01-1933-DW-LOC.pdf