BY MAURICE WILLIAMS

More than 200 participants at the October 12 immigrant rights march on Washington, D.C., signed up to subscribe to the socialist press. Sales of Perspectiva Mundial were phenomenal - about 170 participants bought subscriptions to the Spanish- language monthly. Socialist workers and member of the Young Socialists also sold at least 49 Militant subscriptions and 196 books, including 63 copies of the Marxist magazine New International.

This helped get the international campaign to sell subscriptions to these working-class publications off to a great start. During the seven-week drive, launched October 5, supporters of the socialist press have taken a goal of selling 550 copies of New International and winning 1,200 new subscribers to the Militant and 425 new readers to Perspectiva Mundial (PM).

"We were so busy the whole time we hardly got a break," remarked campaigner Estelle DeBates from Morgantown, West Virginia. She described setting up a "guerrilla table" at the subway stop before the demonstration. The team sold 18 Pathfinder titles and 2 Pathfinder catalogs by the end of the event. DeBates said the titles sold included Malcolm X on Afro- American History, Genocide Against the Indians, Che Guevara Speaks, and Spanish-language pamphlets like Cancelar la deuda de América Latina (Cancel the debt of Latin America) and El manifiesto comunista (the Communist Manifesto).

Socialist campaigners from Brooklyn topped the list for the day, selling 36 Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions, 10 Militant subscriptions, and 40 Pathfinder titles, including 17 copies of New International.

Some of the subscriptions were sold on the buses during the trip to the capital city.

After selling more than one-third of the international goal for Perspectiva Mundial subs in a single day, socialist workers in many cities are now discussing how high to raise their targets for subscriptions to the Spanish-language magazine. Boston was the first to increase, going from a goal of 10 to 15. Not all of the subscription sales from the demonstration are reflected on the sales chart, as it is compiled based on subscription payments received at the Militant business office by Tuesday, October 15. `I need to know about this group'
Many marchers also purchased Nueva Internacional, the Spanish-language edition of the magazine New International. "Three of the Nuevas we sold were to workers from Central America," said DeBates. "I found some of these march participants to be very serious about politics - they often reached first for the Nueva after looking over the table." She noted how one activist surveyed the literature table, and then said, "I need to know everything about this organization." He bought one issue of Nueva Internacional and a PM subscription.

Supporters at the main campaign table for Socialist Workers presidential and vice presidential candidates James Harris and Laura Garza sold 51 Pathfinder titles, 17 subscriptions to PM, and 6 subscriptions to the Militant.

"We couldn't keep anything by Ernesto Che Guevara on the table for long," said Tom Headley from Washington, who staffed the table all day. "We met youth from all over the United States who had heard of Che and wanted to read anything by or about him."

Paco Sánchez from New York sold a Pathfinder Reader's Club membership to a Mexican-American high school teacher from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The teacher bought copies of Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, Socialism and Man in Cuba, and Nueva Internacional no. 2, titled "Che Guevara, Cuba, and the Road to Socialism." He said he plans to make copies of sections of these titles to use in his classes.

Nearly 400 people rallied in Denver the same day in a parallel action with the national march on Washington. Militant supporter Horace Kerr said a 10-person contingent of mushroom pickers and their relatives and friends drove several hours from San Luis Valley, Colorado. Some of these workers are natives of Guatemala who are involved in a union organizing drive and have been struggling against discrimination on the job, at school, and at health clinics. Kerr said demonstrators bought two Militant subscriptions, one sub to Perspectiva Mundial, and a number of Pathfinder titles. Sales team at Midwest packinghouses
Iowa meatpacker Joe Swanson reported, "We sold two Perspectiva Mundial subs to my co-workers at the IBP plant in Perry this past week." Swanson noted the changing composition of the workforce. Today the majority of workers there are immigrants, many of whom are eager to discuss how to change the unions into organizations that will fight for the interests of all workers. They are more and more ready to resist the worsening conditions in these factories. "There have been some recent walkouts led by Latino workers in the Midwest packing plants," Swanson said. "A few weeks ago we sold five Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions on a regional sales team to Denison and Marshalltown, Iowa, where workers protested against a recent immigration raid."

Swanson said socialists in Des Moines are planning another regional sales trip in the Midwest within the next 2-3 weeks. Volunteers from other areas who would like to join the team can call (515) 277-4600.

Socialist workers also got a good response at the September 22-28 convention of the International Association of Machinists in Chicago. Delegates bought two subscriptions and 50 single copies of the Militant, one PM sub, and six Pathfinder books.

Taking the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, New International, and the titles distributed by Pathfinder to working-class neighborhoods is a key component to waging a successful subscription campaign. Rail worker Lee Oleson led a door-to-door sales team in East Orange, New Jersey, that sold three Militant subscriptions. "It didn't take much," Oleson said. "All we had to do was get out there and talk politics."

Amy Husk, a member of the United Transportation Union from New York, contributed to this article.  
 
 
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