That's a big job, but one that is clearly within reach. From Canada, more than $1,200 was received this week. Participants at the Pathfinder Fund rally held in Atlanta during a regional educational conference hosted by the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists raised $2,430, putting Atlanta at the top of the chart. The following report from Des Moines, Iowa, shows how the drive can get on target.

DES MOINES — A fund-raising meeting to aid in the production and distribution of the titles printed and distributed by Pathfinder Press was held here October 23 at the Pathfinder bookstore. The featured speaker was Migdalia Jiménez, a member of the Young Socialists who participated in a reporting trip to Puerto Rico for the Militant newspaper in August. Her talk took up the nationalist and labor upsurge reflected in protests demanding the release of the independence fighters held in U.S. jails and that the U.S. Navy leave the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

"Many among the new generation of Puerto Ricans are being drawn to the idea of independence," Jiménez said. "The books that Pathfinder publishes are tools for these fighters." Pathfinder's newest title, Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium, takes up the increasing weight of national liberation struggles in politics today, in the context of the deepening crisis of capitalism.

Also speaking on the panel were Margaret Trowe and Mark Weddleton. Trowe, a meatpacker and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers, has been part of the effort to make Pathfinder's titles more available to working-class fighters. "The heart of this campaign is to participate in the resistance to the crisis of capitalism with fighting workers and farmers and enlist their aid in getting books like Capitalism's World Disorder placed in the stores and libraries where they go to search out new ideas," she explained.

Weddleton, a volunteer in the project to prepare Pathfinder books to be reprinted, said, "All the titles that Pathfinder keeps in print are completely relevant to what's happening in the world today." He illustrated this with quotes from some 20 different titles he's proofread as part of the Pathfinder Reprint Project.

— Tim Mailhot 

To find out more about the fund, to get involved or to make a contribution, you can contact the nearest Pathfinder bookstore listed on page 12. Please make all checks and money orders out to Pathfinder, earmarked Pathfinder Fund, and send to: Pathfinder, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014.  
 
 
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