The House on Twelfth Street

With a fat, 28-page anniversary issue, Manhattan's Daily Worker last week marked its 25th birthday as the oldest Communist U.S. daily. There were greetings from such sister publications as France's L'Humanite, Britain's Daily Worker and Poland's Trybuna Ludu. (Russia's Pravda tactfully refrained from sending any message.) But there was no office celebration, and little to celebrate. Circulation was at a low 24,700 daily and 67,000 Sunday, finances were as shaky as ever. And sallow, hard-bitten Editor John Gates, who had trained for journalism by fighting with the loyalists in Spain and helping organize the bloody "Little Steel" strike, was being tried on charges of plotting to overthrow the Government (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

Since it was first formed in 1924 by a handful of party stalwarts in Chicago, the Worker has had a rocky history; its first editor was Party Philosopher J. Louis Engdahl, and its first circulation-drummer, Ella Reeve ("Mother") Bloor. In 1926, the Worker moved to Manhattan, switched quarters twice before it settled down on the eighth floor of a dingy building on Twelfth Street, two blocks from Union Square. It started printing on used presses bought cheaply from its archenemy, the Wall Street Journal. .

Since then it has survived innumerable internecine squabbles, but they have left their mark on the Worker offices. While the small city room is cluttered in traditional style with desks, typewriters, telephones and U.P. tickers, the outer office is different. Along the hall outside the city room are doors with no outside knobs; they can be opened only from the inside so no unwelcome strangers can get in.

Party Line. Worker writers turn in their copy to half a dozen editors, known to the rest of the staff as "commissars." The city editors, Eric Bert and Joe Clark, are little more than routing clerks. The commissars censor every bit of copy, iron out minor kinks in the party line, or send the stories and headlines back to be rewritten if the facts don't fit the party's position of the day. For Worker staffers and contributors--Agnes Smedley, Rob Hall, Howard Fast et al.--the line is as inevitable and as obvious in news story, editorial or literary column as red rogue's yarn--the colored strand that runs through Royal Navy cordage. Example: the presidential inauguration story was headlined: TRUMAN REBUFFS SOVIET PEACE BID.

The staff works under constant tension, not to get its facts right as on most other newspapers, but to be sure to toe the line. In its tortuous progress (sometimes with no advance notice from Moscow) many a staffer has been caught zigging when he should have been zagging. The commissars also keep a watchful eye on the personal lives of all employees (present total: 57, including business staff). Since the staff employees are all party members, they are subject to the party's discipline, which rules out such bourgeois reporters' vices as office parties and poker games. Staffers caught breaking the rules must apologize in public meetings and promise to mend their ways.

Capitalist Come-Ons. Such pressure on the staff does not make for lively writing. To get the paper as read as it is Red, the Worker started printing such capitalist come-ons as cartoon strips and columns on homemaking, sports and Broadway. The party line comes through, even in the Broadway column by Barnard Rubin, ex-corporal on the Pacific Stars and Stripes. (When he was kicked off the paper by General MacArthur in 1946, Rubin denied he was a Communist, and yowled that MacArthur was infringing on freedom of the press--TIME, March u, 1946. Rubin started working for the Worker as soon as he was discharged.) A little farther away from the field of political rowdydow, Sportwriter Bill Mardo only occasionally thumps the Communist tub.

For Worker workers the party line comes down from the offices of the Communist Party on the ninth floor, just above the city room. But staffers are not encouraged to visit the party's offices. Anyone who does is watched with suspicion by his comrades, even Worker editors. There is a reason: a visit to the ninth floor can mean that the visitor has caught a staffer in "capitalist error" and is informing on him.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.