BY NAOMI CRAINE
OAKLAND, California - "The next steps are upon us to advance
the distribution of Pathfinder books and make it possible to
keep them in print, in order to meet the expanding
opportunities to get them into the hands of militant workers
and revolutionary-minded youth," said Dave Prince in a special
presentation to the meeting here celebrating the life and
political contributions of Paul Montauk. "To take these next
steps we need to raise $550,000 in capital." Prince is the
director of the capital fund.
Of this sum, $350,000 is rapidly needed to purchase state-of- the-art computer-to-plate (CTP) equipment that will "make it possible to produce the books with a drastic cut in labor time and materials costs. We can do more work at higher quality with a smaller printshop, bringing it to the size we can sustain," Prince said.
An additional $200,000 is needed pay off outstanding loans for the web press the Militant is printed on and two Heidelberg sheet-fed presses used to produce Pathfinder books.
Presenting this campaign to raise capital at a meeting celebrating the life of Paul Montauk was "very fitting," Prince said. As many speakers stressed, Paul knew the value of books. He "recognized the indispensable place of the hard-won experiences of the working class concretized in the 350 books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder."
Keeping these books in print is a joint effort of the socialist cadre who volunteer in the printshop and some 140 supporters of the communist movement who have volunteered to convert the entire Pathfinder arsenal into digital files. Many comrades and friends who came to the meeting for Montauk are part of that effort.
"Volunteers are now sending in completely digitized books, with the cover, graphics, and formatted text all on one compact disk," Prince noted. The computer-to-plate system will allow workers in the printshop to use these files to prepare plates for the presses without the massive amounts of highly skilled manual labor previously needed. This makes it possible for a smaller staff to produce quick, high quality reprints in short runs.
There's a lot more involved than just bringing in new equipment. "The cadre in the press and bindery departments are in the midst of organizing themselves to carry one of the most far-reaching and radical transformations ever in how the shop is organized," Prince said.
Recently there has been a big drop in commercial sales, which the shop needs to stay in business and keep up necessary skills for producing Pathfinder books. The leadership in the shop did not face quickly enough the training needed to sell work produced digitally and then get it through production. In face of this crisis, the volunteers who run the presses and bindery - where the printed pages are turned into books - began taking initiatives to implement the training program that had previously been discussed and decided. They took the lead in finding ways for more and more members of the shop staff to begin learning to sell printing work and prepare the digital files to meet production needs. Cadre in the shop take written tests to qualify on each responsibility.
Two days before the meeting here "we signed the purchase order for the air conditioner and duct work needed to install the CTP equipment," Prince said. "A special `Red Weekend' is being organized November 13-15 to prepare the site for the installation. A few volunteers are needed the week or so beforehand to do preliminary wiring, carpentry, and other work."
One of the displays at the meeting showed the manufacturer's information on the AGFA Galileo computer-to-plate system that will be purchased, as well as a diagram of the digital work flow and photos of the area in the printshop where the equipment will be installed.
The initial down payment of $100,000 will be made as soon as it is raised, Prince said. The balance - another $250,000 - will be due 60 days later. "We're organizing over the next few weeks to raise these funds," he explained.
At the meeting and over the next few days, $75,700 was raised. This includes one large contribution of $50,000, and $18,500 in contributions ranging from $1,000 to $7,000. In addition, a special capital fund collection honoring Montauk's political life raised $7,200. Normally, contributions such as these of less than $1,000 go to efforts like the current New International Fund (see page 4). Contributions to the capital fund generally come from bequests, trusts, and other windfalls.
Members of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists in six industrial unions - the International Association of Machinists; Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers; United Auto Workers; United Food and Commercial Workers; Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees; and United Steelworkers of America - are holding national meetings the weekend of October 24-25. Each meeting will discuss how they can help raise the needed capital, not only through contributing job bonuses but helping win other contributors to the capital fund, including among the younger generations being won to the communist movement.
To find out how you can contribute, write to the Capital Fund Campaign, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014.