November 8, 1999
DES MOINES — A fund-raising meeting to aid in the production and distribution of the titles printed and distributed by Pathfinder Press was held here October 23. The featured speaker was Migdalia Jiménez, a member of the Young Socialists who participated in a reporting trip to Puerto Rico for the Militant. Her talk took up the nationalist and labor upsurge reflected in protests demanding the release of the independence fighters held in U.S. jails and that the U.S. Navy leave the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.
“Many among the new generation of Puerto Ricans are being drawn to the idea of independence,” Jiménez said. “The books that Pathfinder publishes are tools for these fighters.” Pathfinder’s newest title, Capitalism’s World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium, takes up the increasing weight of national liberation struggles in the context of the crisis of capitalism.
November 8, 1974
NEW YORK —The largest action ever held in the United States in support of Puerto Rican independence took place here Oct. 27 when 20,000 people filled Madison Square Garden for a four-hour rally. The rally was cosponsored by scores of organizations and individuals.
The principal speaker was Juan Mari Bras, general secretary of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. He described how U.S. imperialism exploits and dominates Puerto Rico, and he sharply criticized Puerto Rican capitalist politicians as “a clique of lackeys.” The pro-independence leader ended with an appeal for continued support to the independence struggle.
Over the speakers’ platform hung large pictures of five Puerto Rican nationalist political prisoners held in U. S. prisons: Lolita Lebron, Irving Flores, Andres Figueroa Cordero, Oscar Collazo and Rafael Cancel Miranda.
November 7, 1949
TOLEDO, Oct. 29 — A bitter struggle involving labor’s future in this area has broken out over the pension issue. The United Auto Workers announced a few weeks ago that it would seek an area-wide pension agreement with 125 companies presently under contract. Last night, a group of millionaires representing industrial, banking and newspaper interests announced the formation of the “Committee to Save Toledo Payrolls.”
The union pension demands here represent an improvement over the weak agreement negotiated at Ford’s. But it will take a real fight to win a better plan against the kind of opposition that has developed in this area.
What is needed is a call by Local 12, which has some 25,000 members, for a citywide Union Defense Committee, representing the entire labor movement, to combat the attempts being organized to smash the union.