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From Labor Action, Vol. 10 No. 51, 23 December 1946, p. 1.
Transcription & mark-up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
We have earned the right, we think, to appeal to every single reader of Labor Action to give every dollar he can spare toward the $5,000 Xmas Fund Drive to sustain Labor Action as an eight-page paper.
We launched Labor Action almost seven years ago, after the Second World War had already broken out. In war time, especially, a thousand lies are shot out every day to poison the air so that the minds of the people may be poisoned and their eyes blinded to the truth. With the very first issue of Labor Action we set out to tell the truth. Every issue of the paper that we have published has devoted itself to telling the truth all the time and about every question of importance. We have never been deterred by the fact that the truth starts out with a small voice. We have never been deterred by the fact that the truth is not always popular. We have insisted on telling the truth about all the big problems of the day, even when it was not always popular with some of our readers. Whatever difficulties that may bring us are more than compensated for by the fact that,we are always and consistently unpopular with the enemies of the working people, with those who are responsible for the chaos and misery and oppression of the world.
By changing Labor Action to an eight-page paper we made a big jump forward. We were cramped, cramped almost beyond endurance, by the limitations of a four-page paper. So many things of vital importance to the working class and the labor movement are happening in this country and all over the world! There are so many things to write about, so many lies to counteract! Really to do the job that ought to be done, we would need a daily newspaper, a newspaper in the principal cities of the country. But we are still a distance from that. What we have to have as an absolute minimum is our eight-page Labor Action.
We cannot begin to think of maintaining Labor Action as an eight-page paper by the efforts of the members of the Workers Party alone, even though these efforts have been generous to the point of heroic. Our comrades of the Workers Party have shown themselves to be models in their devotion and sacrifice for the cause to which they are dedicated. What we must have In addition is the aid of every reader, including even those readers who do hot agree entirely with our point of view.
We do not hesitate to tell our readers that without their prompt and open-handed aid, we shall be forced to make a retreat to a smaller paper. We do not want to make a retreat and we are confident our readers do not want to see it made either.
We are entering the traditional season of gifts. Make a gift to Labor Action! Make the most substantial contribution you can to Labor Action’s $5,000 Xmas Fund Drive! Our Labor Action is your Labor Action. We do not want to go backward.
It is up to you, to every loyal friend and reader of the paper. Labor Action has earned your support.
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Last updated on 17 July 2020