The first National Hunger March departed in four columns toward Washington D.C. on November 29, 1931 where they would gather a week later. Below are reports from each column on the beginning of their journey.

‘Hunger March Sweeps On’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 8 No. 290. December 3, 1931.

All Columns On Their Schedule, Greeted By Cheering Crowds—One Jailed In Indiana–Capitalist Press All Tangled On Column Two

The National Hunger March continues according to schedule, with all four columns moving from point to point like a military maneuver. Everything has failed to stop them, police attacks, city promises to feed broken arbitrarily, and the propaganda of Hoover’s secret service, General Fries, and Matthew Woll. Everywhere they are greeted with enthusiasm. A great crowd waited for hours in freezing cold in Cincinnati for Column 4, which had had a rousing reception in Indianapolis the night before. This column stopped in Columbus over night.

A parade took place through Toledo streets, a fine mass meeting was held when the marchers of Column 3 reached there Tuesday night and the Column was to stop last night in Cleveland.

In spite of all capitalist press reports, Column 2 reached Binghampton Tuesday night according to schedule, after having outwitted the Syracuse police the night before. This column was to stop over in Scranton last night.

Column 1 was fed and housed in Providence Tuesday night in spite of the city government’s breaking the promise to feed it, and was to stop last night in New Haven, and arrive in New York today at 4 p.m., with a mass reception at 5 p.m. at Union Square.

All these columns, with a total of 1,500 marchers when they get to Washington, are coming as elected delegates of hundreds of thousands of unemployed, to present the demands of 12,000,000 jobless to Congress on Dec. 7. They will demand unemployment insurance to make full wages for unemployed and part time workers and winter relief of $150 for each jobless worker and $50 for each dependent.

COLUMN 1

PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec. 2. The New England delegates of the National Hunger March to Washington forming Column One, left Providence this morning on their way to New Haven, where they will stop over tonight. A crowd of 2,000 met them with enthusiastic greetings and pledges of support last night in Providence.

Previously, during the day, they were met by 250 workers of Norwood, and at Pawtucket were escorted out of town.

The city administration of Providence broke its promise to feed and lodge the workers, but they were provided for by the local workers through the energetic, last minute preparations of the Unemployed Councils and workers’ organizations.

The first stop for mass greetings and a demonstration for unemployment insurance by the marchers today is at Putnam.

COLUMN 2

BINGHAMPTON, N.Y., Dec. 2.- Yesterday morning, while the Syracuse police and New York State troopers who guarded the highways to prevent the hunger marchers of Column 2 from reaching that city, were resting up after 24 hours duty in the rain, the column left Syracuse and last night reached Binghampton without mishap.

This Column, with the aid of the Syracuse workers, evaded the police, and entered Syracuse right under their noses and on time, receiving a rousing welcome and staying over Monday night, according to schedule. Last night Lithuanian Hall here was jammed full with over 500 workers and unemployed workers of Binghampton. Over a hundred could not get in and had to be turned away. The National Hunger Marchers were given a hot meal. Their speakers were received with great enthusiasm and the crowd pledged full support to the demands for unemployment insurance and winter relief which the National Hunger Marchers will present to congress Dec. 7.

Five Binghampton delegates joined the march. Today Column 2 leaves for Scranton, Pa., where it is to stay over night. There will be a couple of stops in towns, between Binghampton and Scranton, for demonstrations.

NEW YORK. The capitalist press here went all astray on the progress of Column Two of the National Hunger March. The Associated Press story shows its reporters took the easy way of accepting the Syracuse and state police officers’ word for what they were going to do, and that the reporters did not try to find out what the marchers did do. The “A.P.” story appears in the New York Times of Dec. 2 as follows: “Syracuse Shunts Buffalo Unit. “SYRACUSE, N.Y., Dec. 1 (A.P.) Buffalo’s contingent of thirty in the army of hunger marchers was “somewhere” in Southern New York State today. Police escorted their truck and three passenger cars around this city.”

Other city papers report “Hunger Marchers Missing” and tell of frantic efforts to locate them on the highway south of Syracuse, the reporters still being under the impression that the police would surely keep them out of Syracuse. While the reporters were hunting for the march along the road to Binghampton Monday night, the marchers were quietly sleeping in Syracuse, and the police were still drinking in the cold rain; outside of Syracuse waiting for them to show up.

Syracuse Papers Caught Too.

SYRACUSE, N.Y., Dec. 2. The Unemployed Council of Syracuse has adopted a hot statement of protest against the attempt (even though unsuccessful) of Mayor Marcin and Chief of Police Cadin to bar the National Hunger Marchers from this city. The statement ridicules the brazen lie in the local Syracuse papers which claim that the police “escorted the marchers around Syracuse.” It calls attention to the big mass meeting in Polep’s Hall, Monday night, at which five carloads of hunger marchers, the whole of Column 2 of the National Hunger March, appeared and were welcome by over 400 Syracuse workers.

COLUMN 3

TOLEDO, Ohio, Dec. 2. No. 3 of the National Hunger March on Washington Column came into Toledo last night with banner flying, and singing. They were met at the court house by ten delegates from the unemployed of Toledo who here joined he march, and by a great crowd demonstrating its support for the march and the demands for unemployment insurance.

After the court house demonstration, eight hundred workers paraded with the Hunger Marchers to Coliseum, where a meeting of a thousand was held. The line of march was two blocks long.

The Coliseum mass meeting unanimously pledged support to the marchers, and adopted resolutions denouncing the police attack on this Column of hunger marchers at Hammond, Ind. Another resolution demanded the release of Mooney.

The workers themselves had prepared to feed and house the marchers. At the last minute, the chairman of the city welfare department, who had once refused food to marchers, changed his mind and offered to provide it. The marchers and the local Unemployed Councils challenge him to feed and house the marchers as they go back through Toledo, if he wants to show any sincerity.

Today the column leaves, to go through Sandusky, Lorraine, Elmyra and into Cleveland, where it will stop over night, tonight.

COLUMN 4

CINCINNATI, Ohio, Dec. 2. delegates of Column 4 of the National Hunger March reached here last night. A crowd numbering thousands waited for the march, in spite of the cold, and gave the delegates a rousing reception.

The marchers and local unemployed councils refused the offer of the city government to put up the marchers in the miserable city flop house, and the delegates were put up and fed by the workers of Cincinnati.

On the way from Indianapolis to Cincinnati the marchers stopped and held mass meetings with farmers in Greenfield and Ogden.

In Richmond, police attacked, and arrested Taylor, a delegate from California. He is charged with distributing leaflets calling for support to the marchers and their demands for unemployment insurance. The sheriff of Union County, Indiana, who is a leader of the Ku Klux Klan tried to provoke a fight with the marchers, but was not successful.

These 42 delegates are all native born Americans, except for three, so the K.K.K. anti-foreign born propaganda was rather pointless.

Today the delegation leaves Cincinnati on the way to Columbus, where it will stop over night.

WHEELING, W. Va., Dec. 2. Headlines in the capitalist press here tell of police threats to break up the National Hunger March Column 4 if there is any demonstration by Wheeling workers in support of it. The police department has asked for state troopers to guard the highway into town.

A committee of 15 from the Unemployed Councils and workers’ organizations is going to the city council today to protest the plans for attack on these delegates of the unemployed, and to demand the right to meet unmolested by police.

Workers of the entire Ohio Valley are asked to come out and form a mass escort for the Hunger March trucks to pass through the terror, and also to help the marchers get through the company town of Weirton.

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.

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