Going to school also requires transportation, food, clothes, and supplies at the minimum. New York City parents and children protest at the beginning the 1931 school year as unemployment, homelessness, illness, and hunger hit the U.S. working class as never before as the Great Depression takes hold.

‘Free Lunches, Supplies, Shoes and Clothing Demanded by Mothers at School Opening’ from The Working Woman. Vol. 2 No. 10. October, 1931.

Plight of Children Worse Than Ever with Jobless Misery Mounting

A sweeping movement of working-class mothers and fathers and school children for free lunches, shoes, clothing, carfare, has reached many sections of the country. Going back to school hundreds of thousands of working-class school children are forced to go with torn or old clothes, with little food, with no money to buy books and other supplies and have no carfare because many of their parents are out of work, or working on part time for very little wages.

At the same time the capitalist school authorities issue statements on what the school children should have, knowing full well that millions of parents cannot buy decent food let alone school supplies, carfare and clothing.

Below is a list of school children and parents’ demonstrations in different parts of the country demanding the children be given those necessities that will permit them to go to school.

Perhaps the greatest piece of hypocrisy was the statement issued by the Health Commissioner of New York on “Ten School Child Health Hints.” Coming at a time when 800,000 jobless families in New York and nearly 1,000,000 children are deprived of many of the barest necessities of life the “Hints” given by the Tammany Health Commissioner is a mockery of the misery of working-class children and mothers. The following are the health hints:

Have your child examined by the family doctor. See that he has the required health certificate. See that he is immunized against diphtheria. See that he is vaccinated against smallpox. See that his teeth are in good condition. See that his feet are fitted with proper shoes. See that his clothing fits comfortably. See that he has a nourishing noon day meal. See that he has a lunch in the afternoon. See that he gets one quart of milk every day.

Every working-class mother knows what is necessary to keep her children healthy. But millions today have no means of getting the necessities to carry this out. The same health commissioner who give out “hints” belongs to the capitalist party and class that is fighting tooth and nail against giving the 11,000,000 unemployed workers unemployment relief so that the necessary means for keeping themselves and their children in decent health and conditions may be had. Commissioner Wynne goes on to say:

“Keeping your youngsters in health is not an arduous proposition, but it requires a little care on your part. The child should have plenty of healthful and nourishing food, and the growing child actually needs more food than the adult. He should have a nourishing breakfast, including fruit and a glass of milk. At noon he should have a filling luncheon, such as soup or a salad, sandwiches, macaroni and cheese, a meat pie or some other easily prepared dish, and with whatever he eats he should always have a glass of milk. When he returns home from school in the afternoon he should have a sandwich and a glass of milk, as well as an apple, or some other fruit. For his evening meal he should be able to eat the same dishes as given the rest of the family, plus a glass of milk. His diet also should include plenty of fresh vegetables, particularly the leafy variety–such as cabbage, lettuce, kale, spinach, tomatoes, etc.

“If this balanced diet, plus the milk, is adhered to the child will stay in health, providing the other cardinal rules of health are obeyed. These are at least eight hours sleep in a well ventilated room; plenty of exercise and recreation in the open air and sunshine and frequent bathing.”

This is what militant working-class women are fighting for when they and their children demonstrate for free hot lunches, for clothing for the children, for free carfare and so on. And this is what Commissioner Wynne, the capitalists and their government are fighting against. They would rather see millions of children go undernourished, half-starved, ragged, suffering in body and mind, than pay unemployment relief from their swollen gold bags. But more and more the jobless workers and women, under the leadership of the Unemployed Councils and Communist Party are forcing relief concessions from the bosses.

On Friday, Sept. 18th several thousand children in New York and Brooklyn paraded to the boards of education bearing signs demanding free food.

“We refuse to starve,” “We want to eat this winter,” “Our parents are unemployed and we want free food.” These were some of the slogans.

A national conference on child health was called in Washington about six months ago. At that conference it was stated clearly that ten million children were suffering in the U.S. from lack of food, fresh air and playgrounds and all the things which childhood needs to grow strong on. A lot of big names attended the conference. A lot of big names attended the conference. A lot of promises were made by U.S. officials and charity fakers, and other hypocrites about all that would be done for the children. We are now face to face with another winter and what will the children get?

Ten million workers are out of work throughout the country, and in New York nearly one million are unemployed. This means that hundreds of thousands of children in New York whose fathers and mothers are unemployed will starve this winter, unless we can force the board of education and the city government to come across with free food for all school children of the unemployed.

LIVING COSTS HIGH

Rents have to be paid and light and fuel have to be paid and still the greedy bosses are not satisfied. What have they done? Now while thousands of fathers, mothers are desperate as winter approaches and they have no jobs now is the time that the electric light robbers, the billion dollar electric light company have raised the light rates; both gas and electricity now cost more than they did a month ago. Parents will have to cut down the supply of milk and eggs for their children so they can pay the landlord and the Edison and Gas Co.

But the children are not going to go to school and starve. Why should they? There is plenty of food; so much food that it is actually rotting because it won’t bring any big prices. It can’t be sold so it rots while tens of thousands of children go hungry and with their big eyes watching the tons of food in the market place that they cannot get.

But the children are going to put up a fight for free food. This fight has already been started by the Young Pioneers in New York, Brooklyn and elsewhere and before the winter is well on thousands of children will be marching through the New York streets in every borough and singing “We want free food; we want warm, nourishing food in school.” And when the children begin to march they will get food. There are a number of things that the children are planning; free food parades; delegations to the board of education. Sending copy of demands to the school board and the city government. Getting petitions signed by every child in the school.

CHILDREN IN STRUGGLE

When the children themselves get on the job. They will get food. When the children march and demand free food it will cause the greedy bosses of the city to think a few times. They will decide that it would be best to keep the children and make them think that the New York government is a good government.

“If we don’t feed the children” (they will tell each other) they will join the Pioneers: We had better give them food and make them believe that the city government is O.K. But the children who march for free food will join the Pioneers and they will get the food, but food or no food they are already learning how much love the full belly millionaires have for the children and of the working-class. They already know that the bosses and landlords eat while the workers children starve. All working women and wives of workers should support the struggle of the Pioneers and all the school children in their militant demands for free warm food for all children of the unemployed.

Working Women, send your children to the meetings and demonstrations of the Pioneers in their battle against starvation.

The Working Woman, ‘A Paper for Working Women, Farm Women, and Working-Class Housewives,’ was first published monthly by the Communist Party USA Central Committee Women’s Department from 1929 to 1935, continuing until 1937. It was the first official English-language paper of a Socialist or Communist Party specifically for women (there had been many independent such papers). At first a newspaper and very much an exponent of ‘Third Period’ politics, it played particular attention to Black women, long invisible in the left press. In addition, the magazine covered home-life, women’s health and women’s history, trade union and unemployment struggles, Party activities, as well poems and short stories. The newspaper became a magazine in 1933, and in late 1935 it was folded into The Woman Today which sought to compete with bourgeois women’s magazines in the Popular Front era. The Woman today published until 1937. During its run editors included Isobel Walker Soule, Elinor Curtis, and Margaret Cowl among others.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/wt/v2n10-oct-1931-WW-R7414.pdf