‘Paris Commune Commemorated in Chicago’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 61. March 24, 1926.

PARIS COMMUNE COMMEMORATION ATTRACTS CROWD

Present Good Program at Carmen’s Hall

From all over the country come reports of good Paris Commune celebrations. Chicago itself led off with a crowd of several thousand at the Carmen’s Auditorium on Ashland boulevard last Saturday night.

The splendid program was heartily enjoyed. The Lettish orchestra opened the affair with several selections, after which Bishop William Montgomery Brown addressed the gathering. He received quite an ovation, a tribute to his courage in facing the ostracism of his class to advocate the workers’ cause as he understands it.

A unique feature was the presentation of the short one-act play of that revolutionary period entitled “The Last Day of the Commune.” Here the workers saw what barricade fighting in a civil war actually means. The dramatic episode depicted was effectively staged with the assistance of local Communist artists and the amateur company showed the results of conscientious drill in their portrayal of the spirit of the Commune.

Proletarian Dictatorship Necessary.

Robert Minor, in a short speech, declared that the Russian Bolshevik revolution incarnated the hopes of the Communards. From the experiences of Paris the militant workers had learned that it was only thru a proletarian dictatorship that power could be retained and the will of labor enforced. They had come also to recognize that the peasants must be considered and that every effort should pe exerted to secure them as allies of the industrial workers. He emphasized the lesson that the revolutionary struggle could be carried on successfully only thru the instrumentality of a highly disciplined, centralized political party with the function of coordinating all labor’s efforts to the single end of overthrowing capitalism.

Corinne Speaks.

Corinne Robinson followed him, calling upon the workers, irrespective of color, race, or nationality, to join in the common revolutionary object. She was heartily applauded, representing as she does one of the most oppressed and discriminated against races.

Russian Prison Songs.

A very realistic touch was added in the singing of Russian prison songs by the Russian chorus. These plaintive laments voiced the sufferings of the people under the czars, sufferings which the workers of the European border states in particular are now experiencing.

Moritz Loeb, business manager of the DAILY WORKER, made the collection appeal in behalf of the Labor Defense League, under whose auspices the meeting was held. Ralph Chaplin, the I.W.W. poet, was chairman.

Motion Pictures.

Showing of motion pictures depicting the sufferings of political prisoners and the outrages perpetrated upon the workers all over the world by the police and soldiers as the agents of the state’s repressive forces closed the evening’s program.

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/1926/1926-ny/v03-n061-NY-mar-24-1926-DW-LOC.pdf