A Call for Action!

This flyer was handed out to workers to rally together for a demonstration against relief cuts. When not on ships, seamen were transient. Their wages were very low, not nearly enough to pay for housing or hotels while on land. Non-profit organizations like SCI set up lodging and food centers for the destitute seamen, called relief stations, but they had limited resources. As less and less ships went out to sea during the Great Depression, thousands of workers lined up for only hundreds of beds in New York City. The flyer states “Hundreds of workers are refused relief on all kinds of flimsy excuses, such as, you haven been here long enough, or you get one or two days a month work” – leaving men literally sleeping on the streets. The flyer demands the opening of a new relief station on the West Side, and calls on officials from the charitable organizations to come to the meeting “to defend themselves, and explain why relief is being cut down.”