Source: M.J. Olgin: Leader and Teacher, compiled and edited by the staff of the Morning Freiheit. New York, Workers Library Publishers, 1939.
Transcribed: Mitch Abidor for the Marxists Internet Archive in 2005
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Proofreader: Chris Clayton
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The National Committee of the Communist Party of the United States records with the deepest sorrow the death of Moissaye J. Olgin on the morning of November 22, 1939. Comrade Olgin was the outstanding and most beloved figure in the Jewish community, whose influence extended far beyond the borders of America, as well as a leading member of the Communist Party since 1922. As the editor of the Morning Freiheit since its foundation, he was mainly responsible for its growing influence, and for the high literary quality which characterized its pages, reflecting his wide culture and his own distinguished talents as an artist, which attracted many worthy collaborators. Unexcelled as an orator, Comrade Olgin wore himself out meeting the demands upon his services as a speaker, among the broadest masses as well as directly for the Party, whose candidate he was in many election campaigns in New York.
After almost two years’ illness, during which Comrade Olgin continued from his sickbed a prolific literary work for the Freiheit, for the Daily Worker, and as special correspondent of Pravda, Moscow, he had apparently improved in health so greatly that he appeared in Madison Square garden, on November 13, for his first public speech since he was stricken. No one present at that meeting can forget the demonstration Comrade Olgin received on that occasion, which fittingly registered the deep mass affection for him that lives in the hearts of the workers; fruit of his long years of selfless devotion to their interests. The 22,000 workers in that audience did not realize that they were exchanging the final greetings with one of the most outstanding of their representatives, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands, yes millions, who will mourn the great loss we have all suffered at his death.
Comrade Olgin would have asked no better setting for his last days than his active service in the cause of the working class, of socialism, of the Communist Party, which he carried on to his last hours, in which he found the fullest realization of his life-long aspirations.
Moissaye J. Olgin wrote his name indelibly in the hearts of the masses whom he served. The National Committee of the CPUSA joins with these masses in their sorrow, and calls upon all who felt Olgin’s inspiring influence to close their ranks, with the same enthusiasm he showed, for victory in the battles name beginning.
William Z. Foster, Chairman
Earl Browder, General Secretary