From the very beginning, the campaigners are working to raise and collect funds on a steady, weekly basis, which means collecting $9,450 a week internationally for each of the 11 weeks of the drive. To ensure this, contributors are being urged to make regular payments on their pledges.

Pathfinder partisans in Philadelphia organized a successful fund-raising meeting September 7. They hosted a forum on the class struggle in South America today and prospects for building the communist movement in the United States. The featured speakers were Militant and Perspectiva Mundial editor Martín Koppel and Young Socialists leader Romina Green, both of whom went to Paraguay and Argentina in July to meet working people and youth looking for a communist perspective.

Local fund director Bob Stanton reports, "Their political talks made clear the impact of the books from Pathfinder and the revolutionary continuity they represent for fighters around the world today. During the collection, seven new pledges were made, bringing the total pledged from the area up to $4,140." This meant an increase in Philadelphia’s goal from $3,500.  
 
Expanding first-time contributors
Stanton points out that "several of the pledges are from first-time contributors who appreciate Pathfinder books and want to help in getting them out to more people. One worker from the area near the bookstore took a pledge envelope with him to consider what his pledge should be, promising to return it later this week."

Pathfinder Fund campaigners in some cities are considering taking on a goal for how many first-time contributors they can win through the course of the drive. Their objective is to expand the campaign well beyond longtime supporters of Pathfinder books to include others who know they depend on these revolutionary political tools. They are also sending fund appeal letters to potential contributors.

Steve Clark, editorial director of Pathfinder, will speak on "Imperialism’s Course Toward Depression and War" at meetings both in New York’s Garment District fund meeting, on September 13, and in Newark, New Jersey, on September 20. Clark is editor of the new, expanded edition of Malcolm X Talks to Young People, which, along with the first-ever Spanish-language edition, Malcolm X habla a la juventud, is being released this fall. The meetings help fund campaigners bolster their efforts to solicit new contributions and to gather payments on pledges.

In New York, Pathfinder supporters have also been stepping up their work to promote and sell revolutionary titles to bookstores, libraries, and other outlets.

Gale Shangold, who directs the book sales effort in New York, said, "New York City supporters know we are in one of the best book markets in the world, whose potential we’ve never tapped. We have taken a goal of making 25 visits to book buyers by October 15. We’ve already made six visits. We plan to send out a promotional flyer on Pathfinder’s new book, October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba by Tómas Diez Acosta, by e-mail and fax to 200 buyers as a way to get appointments and orders."

"Another project we will be tackling is to send a press release to periodicals in the area, including newspapers with readerships in the Black and Latino communities," Shangold said. This new book will come off the presses on the eve of the 40th anniversary of when Washington pushed the world to the precipice of nuclear war by threatening to bomb and invade revolutionary Cuba if it did not remove nuclear missiles supplied by the Soviet Union. Diez describes in the book how "Cuba defended, with dignity and courage, its self-determination and sovereignty," staying the hand of the imperialist warmakers.

October 1962 and other Pathfinder titles will be featured at the Pathfinder booth at the "New York is Book Country" street fair September 29, where several hundred thousand people will browse the book stalls set up along Fifth Avenue. It will be a golden opportunity to gain new readers of Pathfinder books and literature.  
 
 
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