Sales of pamphlet aid drive to sell 'Militant'
BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Partisans of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial in Washington, D.C., have got a good start on the subscription drive and are well ahead of schedule. "This past weekend we sold seven subscriptions to the Militant and six to Perspectiva Mundial," wrote Janice Lynn. "We had a big display at the Baltimore Book Fair that featured a blown-up poster of the new Pathfinder pamphlet The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform under Capitalism. We also placed the newly reprinted version of Thomas Sankara Speaks on a bookstand."
Lynn said the display attracted many people, including a woman from Uganda who told her Sankara was one of the clear-est thinkers she had ever heard. "She bought a subscription along with the special $1 offer for the education pamphlet and another Pathfinder title, Fighting Racism in World War II."
Four people bought subscriptions to PM at a Latino Festival in Washington the same weekend. They were interested in the Spanish-language monthly's coverage of Vieques and Peru. "In all, some $611 worth of Pathfinder books and pamphlets were purchased over the weekend's activities, with the most popular being those dealing with the Cuban revolution, including four copies of Che Guevara Talks to Young People, Lynn added. "The pamphlet Genocide Against the Indians was also popular, with five copies purchased."
As the chart shows sales of the new pamphlet are going very well. Supporters of the subscription effort in some places are already raising their goals. "We have now raised our goal after selling 22 copies of the new pamphlet over the weekend, reaching our previous goal of 50," said Janice Lynn. "We sold 19 at the Baltimore Book Fair. Most of the seven people who bought subs at the fair also purchased the pamphlet."
As we enter the target week of the circulation drive, from September 30 through October 8, the international subscription campaign is 5 percentage points behind schedule, with supporters in a number of cities getting off to a slow start. The target week offers an opportunity to get back on track, with special sales teams and daily sales activities reaching out to workers, farmers, and youth. It will take an all-out effort with careful planning to boost the drive ahead of schedule by October 9.
Supporters of the sales drive can take advantage of a number of labor actions that are taking place during the target week like the October 4 coordinated day of actions planned by port truck drivers who haul cargo to and from ports across the United States.
Many bus drivers in Los Angeles, who are striking against plans to lengthen their workday, will be interested in reading coverage of their fight in the Militant, as will members of the United Transportation Union and bus drivers in many cities. The fight by transportation workers in Los Angeles to hold off steep concessions and institute a longer workday is one faced by tens of thousands across the country.
Supporters of the Militant will also be building actions planned for October 14 in New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Austin, Texas, to demand amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Other events coming up include the World March of Women set for October 15 in Washington and an October 17 meeting to present demands for women's rights to the United Nations.
The sales campaign in San Francisco jumped on target after a sluggish start in the first week. Socialist workers there visited the picket line at Earthgrains bakery in Oakland among other political activities. Some 700 workers on strike at the company's facility in Alabama had dispatched strikers to picket at 27 other Earthgrains plants throughout the country. They brought the company to its knees when their 3,000 co-workers refused to cross the picket lines.
"We went to the picket line four times this past week and quickly made some lasting friends," said Bernie Senter. "We sold four subscriptions and more than a dozen copies of the Militant. The reception was great. Workers from Alabama and California really appreciated the previous article in the Militant about their strike and the broader coverage in the paper. One worker said he mailed in for a subscription the night after he bought an issue of the Militant.
Raising goals for pamphlet sales
In New York's Garment District, campaigners there are leading the drive in proletarian pamphleteering and subscription sales of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. With hardly an exception, new subscribers are taking advantage of getting The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning for an additional $1. "We set up a table in the Lower East Side of the city, where we sold four subscriptions that all included the special $1 offer for the new pamphlet," said Susan Anmuth, director of the circulation drive there. "One man who purchased the special deal was a Palestinian farmer who lived in upstate New York." Getting up literature tables in the Garment District has proven a great way to introduce garment workers to socialist literature and Pathfinder books.
Workers and young people purchased $85 worth of books at a Sunday afternoon street table in the area, including a young woman who had just got off her job where she works as a sewing machine operator. After looking carefully at each title in Spanish, she purchased Capitalism's World Disorder by Jack Barnes in Spanish and a copy of Perspectiva Mundial.
The Socialist Workers presidential and vice-presidential candidates, James Harris and Margaret Trowe, are both promoting the pamphlet as part of their election campaign. Supporters in Boston got the sales drive on track this past week while campaigning with Trowe, selling four Militant subscriptions, including two at a Militant Labor Forum that featured the vice-presidential candidate. "The two young people who bought the subs also purchased the pamphlet," reported Ted Leonard.
Also in Boston, Sarah Ullman, a rail worker, sold an issue of the Militant to a co-worker a couple of weeks ago. The next time he saw her he said to her, "I saw a guy in my hometown who has a subscription. I am thinking about getting one too." He subsequently bought the subscription from Ullman.
Leonard said one of the Militant subscriptions supporters of the sub drive from Boston sold included one at Yale University where a conference on "Ending the Cold War Against Cuba" took place. A table of Pathfinder books and pamphlets was on display there that became a focus of political discussions about Washington's hostility to the Cuban revolution.
"There was wide interest in Pathfinder titles," said Mike Taber, "especially the book To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's 'Cold War' Against Cuba Doesn't End." Taber said issue no. 11 of the Marxist maga-zine New International, which featured the article "U.S. Imperialism Has the Cold War," was also an attractive title.
During the course of the day, people at the university purchased about $375 worth of Pathfinder titles, including 3 copies of To Speak the Truth, 3 of New International no. 11, 2 of The Second Declaration of Havana, 2 of Che Guevara Talks to Young People, 2 of Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, 1 of Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, 1 of Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitatiion of Women, and a range of other books and pamphlets.
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