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Capitalist Come-Ons. Such pressure on the staff does not make for lively writing. To get the paper as read as it is Red, the Worker started printing such capitalist come-ons as cartoon strips and columns on homemaking, sports and Broadway. The party line comes through, even in the Broadway column by Barnard Rubin, ex-corporal on the Pacific Stars and Stripes. (When he was kicked off the paper by General MacArthur in 1946, Rubin denied he was a Communist, and yowled that MacArthur was infringing on freedom of the press—TIME, March u, 1946. Rubin started working for the Worker as soon as he was discharged.) A little farther away from the field of political rowdydow, Sportwriter Bill Mardo only occasionally thumps the Communist tub.
For Worker workers the party line comes down from the offices of the Communist Party on the ninth floor, just above the city room. But staffers are not encouraged to visit the party's offices. Anyone who does is watched with suspicion by his comrades, even Worker editors. There is a reason: a visit to the ninth floor can mean that the visitor has caught a staffer in "capitalist error" and is informing on him.