The Aged Worker

Back in the 1950s, the Daily Worker was viewed with alarm and distrust as the official organ of the U.S. Communist Party. Then, as circulation declined along with party membership, the paper dropped "Daily" from its title in 1958 and became a weekly. Three years later, it began appearing twice a week. Last week, after a partially successful fund-raising campaign, it once again turned into a daily with a new title, Daily World.

The shrill polemics are gone, the layout is conservative. Compared with the psychedelic sheets put out by today's revolutionary-minded kids, the Daily World seems almost as prosaic as a house organ for some large trade union. In its first issues, it reported the first New York-Moscow air link, the threatening steel strike, the tussle over the poverty program. An editorial had some kind words for the U.S.: "The recent increase in activity in Washington and Moscow toward more cordial relations should be welcomed by all Americans." And some sharp words for "selfstyled Leftists who denounce any step toward a detente as a 'betrayal.' "

The World has run very little news of the party, which is not making much news these days in the U.S. Nor is ideology pervasive in all stories. A critic took exception to an off-Broadway play, The American Pig, which ridicules life in the U.S. "The idea of satirizing vulgarity by being more vulgar backfires," wrote the critic. "If you murder art--somebody is going to pay for it." In the old days, it would have been rank heresy for a Communist to value art above social content.

New Image. Aware that today's kids consider the Communist Party rigid and conservative, staffers are trying to broaden the paper's appeal. Hence, the name change from Worker to World. "The term Worker was too exclusive," says Executive Editor Simon Gerson, who has been with the paper since 1931. "We want to reach students and white-collar workers as well." Though the Communist Party is the chief backer, the World has picked up support from sympathizers who, even if they reject Communism, share its opposition to racial inequality and the war in Viet Nam.

Despite attempts to recruit nonparty youths to work on the paper, it is still largely staffed by oldtime party members. The readership is similarly middleaged. Blandness seems to be the chief weakness of the World, as well as a certain amateurism. On page 3 of an issue last week, a story told how "Dick Gregory lay gravely ill" in a jail while friends feared for his life. On page 8 of the same issue was a photograph of Gregory just after his release from jail with the caption: "Dick's back." But to the faithful, the Daily World, no less than the Worker before it, remains, as an editorial proclaims, "America's only English-language daily newspaper dedicated to peace, democracy and socialism."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.