Selling subscriptions to the Militant and its Spanish-language sister monthly magazine Perspectiva Mundial, along with books on revolutionary politics like those advertised as part of the Pathfinder super saver sale (see ad on page 6), is a complementary task to campaigning for the socialist slate.
To facilitate these efforts, and taking into account the goals adopted by distributors in local areas and their performance the first four weeks of the sub drive, the Militant editors have lowered the international target to 2,300 Militant subscriptions. With this adjustment, campaigners can go out confident that they are shooting for a realizable goal. Campaigners are making plans to make maximum use of an October 2-10 target week to push ahead in the international drive to expand the readership of the socialist campaign newspapers.
Readers from about a dozen cities sent in reports last week describing how they are taking advantage of campaigning for the socialist candidates to sell revolutionary literature.
“I wish you luck on your campaign,” a coal miner at the Hobet mine near Charleston, West Virginia, told Brian Taylor as he stopped to speak with him outside the mine entrance on September 25. Taylor, a coal miner in southwestern Pennsylvania, is the SWP candidate for U.S. Senate in that state.
“I buy this paper every time you guys come out,” the West Virginia miner told Taylor, as he picked up a copy of the Militant and a statement issued by the socialist campaign headlined “Support Horizon miners’ fight to maintain health care and pensions! Support their right to a union!”
Over the September 25-26 weekend a team of campaign supporters from Pittsburgh and Cleveland visited several mines in the Charleston area that were formerly owned by Horizon Natural Resources.
On September 24, the Cannelton mine in Fayette County, now owed by Massey Energy, shut its doors, laying off 255 miners. That mine and six others organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) were sold off by Horizon. The pensions and medical benefits of 3,300 miners and retirees connected to these mines were put on the chopping block when a federal bankruptcy judge issued a ruling granting Horizon bosses the right to throw out the provisions in the union contract on pensions and medical care. Coal miners with 20-30 years in the mine stand to be left empty-handed.
Twenty-eight miners bought copies of the Militant at that mine. After visiting four mine portals in the area, the socialist workers sold the socialist paper to a total of 60 miners. Three signed up to subscribe.
In Washington, D.C. SWP vice-presidential candidate Arrin Hawkins attended a September 28 protest there by farmers fighting for land and against systematic racist discrimination by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) against farmers who are Black. Nine farmers signed up to subscribe to the Militant.
In Houston, campaign supporters are gearing up for a campaign visit by Hawkins in the coming week.
“We’ve had quite a week in Houston,” reported Brian Williams. “We visited Tulane University in New Orleans last weekend [September 25-26] and our campaign table was busy the whole day. Arrin Hawkins is scheduled to speak at Tulane on October 2. Twenty students signed up to meet her. Six students bought subscriptions to the paper at the campus. We sold two more at a gathering that night to celebrate getting the SWP ticket on the Louisiana ballot.
“Several students wearing Kerry T-shirts stopped by the table and picked up campaign literature,” Williams continued. “One, who told us he had volunteered to help register students to vote, picked up a dozen copies of the campaign handout to give to his friends.” Williams said that the weekend before, the socialist campaign got a warm response at a Palestinian film festival held at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Participants snapped up 37 books and pamphlets and 13 subscribed to the Militant.
Fall Militant/Perspectiva Mundial Fall Subscription Drive chart (week 4)