Organizing homeless people was a major activity of the Communist Party in the early 1930s. Here, a statement from the Youth Committee of the C.P.-led National Unemployed Council directed to ‘homeless youth’.

‘Homeless Youth—Refuse to Starve!’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 10 No. 25. January 30, 1933.

AN army of 1,000,000 homeless boys and girls are out on the road in search of work. Driven from their homes by the poverty of their families, they are wandering from town to town, looking for jobs, begging for food. Hounded by the police, thrown into jail and onto the chain gang in the South, killed by the railroad guards, these boys wander–wander without a goal. The homeless girls, trusting to the good mercies of the YWCAS and similar institutions, find themselves out on the streets, many driven into prostitution.

Many of these homeless youth have never seen the inside of a factory. Graduates of high schools and colleges, they could find no job. They could not eat the crumbs given their families for the younger children, and therefore hit the road. Hundreds of thousands more have been fired out of the factories. Older men have taken their places–men whom the bosses did not want a few years ago, but who now work for boys’ wages at speed which will kill them in a few years.

While these working class boys and girls starve, the boys and girls of the “better families” enjoy themselves. When the homeless boy comes to Miami, he finds the son and daughter of the Wall Street banker enjoying themselves on the beach–feasting, bathing, happy. While the homeless girl in the city wanders the streets, hungry and miserable, she finds the daughter of the millionaire attending the opera, decked in furs and jewels, eating at swell restaurants. While the sons and daughters of the rich go on yachting trips to the South, the sons and daughters of the working class hit the road, dirty and hungry–wandering in search of work and food.

This is the system under which we are living–the system that is starving the working class youth, breaking down its morale, driving it to suicide and crime! This is the system which tells the youth of today: YOU SHALL NOT WORK, BUT STARVE. YOU MAY WANDER, BUT YOU WILL BE KILLED ON THE ROAD, BE THROWN INTO JAIL, BE PUT ON THE CHAIN GANG.

Homeless youth: DO YOU ACCEPT THIS VERDICT? WILL YOU SUBMIT TO STARVATION OR WILL YOU BAND TOGETHER IN ORDER TO DEMAND FOOD AND SHELTER?

Roosevelt spoke of the “forgotten man”–but he has forgotten the children of the working class. Al Smith, leader of the corrupt Tammany Hall, Newton D. Baker, war secretary in the Wilson cabinet, and General Glassford, who helped to murder the bonus marchers last summer, have not “forgotten” you. They know that the 17,000,000 unemployed in this country are not going to accept the starvation that the bosses give them. They know that the workers in the shops and factories will not accept the starvation wages that the bosses force on them. They know that the militant fights put up by the Unemployed Councils are compelling them to provide more and more relief. They know that the splendid National Hunger March to Washington under the leadership of the Unemployed Councils is a warning that the workers intend to fight for adequate unemployment relief and unemployment insurance.

Therefore, Baker, Smith, Glassford, Senator Wagner, and others are proposing to put you into army camps, labor camps, etc., for the purpose of teaching you to fight to use you against the workers fighting for bread. They want to use you against your fathers and mothers who fight for milk for the children. They want to prepare you for another murderous war, in which the workers will bleed, but the bosses’ profits will increase. They propose to put you into the army, to make you ready for the war they are hatching against the Soviet Union.

HOMELESS YOUTH: ARE YOU READY TO BLEED FOR THE BOSSES WHO NOW LET YOU STARVE? ARE YOU READY TO SHOOT DOWN YOUR FATHERS AND MOTHERS, WHOSE HOME YOU HAD TO LEAVE BECAUSE OF HUNGER? THE ANSWER IS CLEAR: IT MUST BE A MIGHTY NO!

Then what is to be done?

Wherever you are, stay and fight. The Young Communist League has issued a call for the unity of the working class youth in a fight for bread and shelter. The bosses give you no jobs, they deny you relief. Banded together, millions strong, you can compel them to give you food and shelter. The Unemployed Councils everywhere have forced the relief organizations to grant relief, they have stopped evictions. YOU CAN DO THE SAME.

The UNEMPLOYED COUNCILS OF U.S.A. call upon you to unite and put up a fight. In this fight you have the full support of the fighting Councils of the Unemployed throughout the country. Get together. Discuss your demands. Put forward your leaders. Let the bosses know that you want none of their Salvation Army, military camp and army stuff.

You demand FOOD AND SHELTER.

Singly you can be defeated–UNITED, YOU ARE A POWER. Backed up by the Unemployed Councils, as the young fighters of the working class, you are a force to be reckoned with.

The UNEMPLOYED COUNCILS and the Young Communist League call you to regional conferences in Sacramento, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, on FEBRUARY 15, for the four sections of the country, to discuss the needs and demands of the youth–and to decide ACTION. Young Communists, homeless youth themselves, are out on the road, in the jungles, Hoovervilles, Rooseveltburgs and flophouses, raising the question with the homeless young workers. They are in the YWCAs, talking to the girls.

HOMELESS BOYS: Get in touch with the Unemployed Council wherever you are. Direct the other boys to the place. Become an organizer for the conferences.

HOMELESS GIRLS: Do the same. Become an organizer among the tens of thousands of working class girls who are thrown out of their homes because of hunger.

BOYS OUT ON THE ROAD: Get among the homeless youth in distant sections. Tell them the WORKING CLASS BOYS AND GIRLS ARE GETTING TOGETHER TO FIGHT FOR BREAD AND SHELTER. TELL THEM THAT A GOVERNMENT THAT CAN SPEND BILLIONS AND RECRUIT YOU FOR WAR, MUST CARE FOR THE WORKING CLASS AND THEIR CHILDREN. TELL THEM THAT A GOVERNMENT THAT GIVES BILLIONS TO THE BANKS AND RAILROADS, CAN FIND FUNDS FOR THE RELIEF OF THE WORKING CLASS. THIS WE CAN FORCE THEM TO DO IF WE GET TOGETHER.

Make the conferences in Sacramento, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh on February 15 MASS CONFERENCES. Discuss with the boys and girls what they should demand. We propose:

1. $1 per day for every homeless youth, to be raised on a local and national scale.

2. State, city and federal buildings–armories, public auditoriums, etc.–be used for shelter for unemployed youth. These shelters to be managed by committees of the youth.

3. Abolition of all vagrancy and anti-hitch hike laws.

4. State and federal unemployment insurance to be paid by the government and employers.

Form COMMITTEES OF ACTION in the jungles, flophouses, on every box car, to fight for immediate relief, food, clothes, medical attention and shelter.

UNEMPLOYED YOUNG WORKERS: Stay in your cities and fight for relief. Organize committees of action in the neighborhoods, pool rooms, clubs and flophouses. Carry on a fight with the Unemployed Councils, for relief. ALL THE WORKERS MUST UNIFE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST HUNGER–NEGRO AND WHITE, YOUNG AND OLD. NOW IS THE TIME WHEN UNITY IS MOST NEEDED. On to Sacramento, St. Louis, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh on February 15 there to decide on ACTION!

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/1933/v010-n025-Nat-jan-30-1933-DW-LOC.pdf