"The meeting drew a full house to the Seattle Pathfinder bookstore," wrote Dave Ferguson, who helped organize the event. "The participants heard a talk by Joe Yates, a meat packer from Vancouver, British Columbia, covering many of the fronts where workers and farmers are resisting the attacks of capitalism and imperialism--from Argentina and Venezuela to France and Palestine, and here in the United States and Canada.

"We raised $3,300 in pledges and cash for the fund," reported Ferguson. "Before the meeting we put on a well-attended dinner, and afterwards many people joined a social event at a nearby apartment where the political discussion continued."

Supporters in a number of areas have informed the Militant of preparations to hold similar public meetings for the fund.

Having just returned from participating in a May 17-18 forum of university students and young socialists in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Socialist Workers Party representatives Jack Willey and Rollande Girard, Young Socialists leader Arrin Hawkins, and Natalie Seguin of the Young Socialists and Communist League in Canada, have been in strong demand to speak on "Prospects for building an international socialist movement of working people and youth." Supporters in New York, New Jersey, Western Colorado, Florida, Washington, D.C., and Vancouver are all planning meetings in the next two weeks at which one of the four will speak.

Other leaders of the socialist movement will appear as special guests at meetings elsewhere. Perspectiva Mundial editor Martín Koppel will speak in Boston on June 9; Joel Britton, a meat packer and SWP leader in Chicago, will speak in Detroit; and Ma'mud Shirvani, the Farsi-language editor of Pathfinder Press, has been invited for a weekend of events to build the socialist movement in the Twin Cities. YS leader Romina Green will be the featured speaker at the Chicago event on May 26, while the Cleveland meeting on May 31 will include a coal miner, unionist, and member of the Socialist Workers Party.

At each of these events a supporter of the socialist press will take some time to explain the importance of the fund in ensuring that the Militant and PM can be published, and can continue to carry the kind of working-class reporting and analysis that make them effective weapons in the hands of working-class fighters.

Far from drawing on the backing of big business or on advertising revenue, the socialist press depends on sales income and on the contributions of workers, farmers, and other readers to cover the substantial costs of publication. Just the printing costs of the Militant alone, for example, have increased by almost 100 percent over the last year to reach a figure of more than $65,000.

This week's chart, the first published in the campaign, shows that the international total has sailed over the $50,000 mark. So next week's chart will feature a new and higher goal! By next issue the chart should also reflect the results of the concentrated work that supporters are beginning to put into winning pledges and contributions, as the fund marches in step with the international circulation drive (see article elsewhere in this issue).  
 
 
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