BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
As we enter the final two weeks of the international subscription campaign, socialist workers and members of the Young Socialists face a serious challenge to sell 530 Militant subscriptions, 120 subscriptions to Perspective Mundial, and 265 copies of New International. With a concerted push, making the goal is possible as reflected in the growing opportunities shown in the reports below to win workers and youth to revolutionary ideas.

"I sold a copy of New International no 10, which features the article `Imperialism's march toward fascism and war,' to my co- worker Lee Roy Oliver this week," said Militant supporter Joe Swanson from Des Moines, Iowa. "He is a recent subscriber to the Militant and said he really liked the editorial in the paper that called for defending civil right of gays." Swanson said Oliver, who is Black, told him, "There are many working people who are gay. I try to treat all as equals, it should not matter if one is gay. It was a bad thing killing that student [Matthew Shepard]. We must take a stand against this killing and have the same kind of response that is needed against cops, who beat up and kill Blacks every day across the country."

Swanson, a member of the United Auto Workers, said the Socialist Workers campaign will be holding an event in Marshalltown, Iowa, featuring Maggie Trowe, the Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate, who is also a meatpacker at the Swift- Montford plant there. "One of Maggie's co-workers from Mexico who is helping to build the event, was one of our top petitioners for our election campaigns in Iowa and Minnesota. She also in spoke at the Militant Labor Forum last weekend along with Earl Sime, a member of the National Farmers Union."

Supporters of the Militant in Washington, D.C., have jumped into several actions to win new readers to the socialist press and communist ideas. "Young Socialist members Olympia Newton and José Sánchez addressed a crowd of some 50 young people at an October 24th rally to `Protest police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation,'" reports Janice Lynn. "We sold six copies of the Militant, five Pathfinder titles, and one copy of New International no. 11."

Lynn said two days earlier a team of activists sold four subscriptions to the Militant to students at American University. And on October 21 another team sold 10 copies of the paper to students at the University of Maryland, while signing up several students interested in the Young Socialists and the YS convention scheduled for December 4-6 in Los Angeles.

"Nine people at Fresno State University signed up for the YS convention," said Karen Ray from San Francisco. She said a campaign team went there last weekend that included Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate Jim Gotesky, where they sold four Militant subscriptions, two subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, and five copies of New International.

"I went to Santa Rosa where some farm workers told us to set up a campaign table at a flea market," Ray said. "We sold a Militant subscription to a Croatian student who bought it based on the headline in a back issue of the paper that read `U.S., NATO hands off Yugoslavia!' He's been reading a little on Marxism and expressed interest in attending the YS convention."

Ray said Militant supporters also went to Mills College in Oakland, where they set up a campaign sign defending abortion rights. "There was total outrage over the October 23 killing of Dr. Barnett Slepian. In a number of discussions with students, many of them linked Slepian's murder with the killing of gay student Matthew Shepard." Ray said a prochoice vigil has been called for October 31 organized by the National Organization for Women, National Abortion Rights Action League, and others.

"Two young Black women attending the Black Festival at Georgia State University on October 27 decided to subscribe to the Militant after hearing my speech to the 150 people in the audience," said Dan Fein, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate in Georgia. "I received ovations three times during my speech; after I explained the party's support for quotas to enforce affirmative action, after denouncing the murder of Matthew Shepard, and after calling for protests to defend abortion rights in the light of the murder of the doctor in upstate New York who performed abortions."

After his talk, Fein, a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1996, said three students approached him to shake his hand and asked about supporting his campaign. One student stated, "It's about time a candidate told the truth about minority issues." Two of the students decided to buy subscriptions to the Militant and one of the new subscribers also took information on the upcoming YS convention in Los Angeles. "A number of youth signed up for more information on the YS and the convention and we sold five Pathfinder books at the booth."

Fein said supporters of the Militant in Atlanta are planning to attend an anti-Klan rally planned for October 31 in Gainesville, Georgia, and a sales team is going to Charlotte, North Carolina, this weekend to talk to workers on strike against Continental General Tire. Another team will join with other Militant supporters from Washington, D.C., to participate in a November 5 strike support rally there organized by the United Steelworkers of America. "We got a glimpse of the guts and potential to fight of some of the poultry workers we met at the Perdue plant in Lewiston, North Carolina, wrote rail worker Stu Singer. "A couple of current and former Perdue workers accompanied us to the plant gate, and 23 workers bought copies of the Militant during a shift change. The large majority of workers we talked to are for a union, but a number did not think they could get a union in the plant."

"One union stalwart who came out bought a paper, parked her car, and stood with us at the gate," Singer added.  
 
 
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