One of the contributions to the paper of lasting impact was a short story written by New York Socialist Ben Hanford in 1909 , at a time when he was dying of cancer . The story , " '' ' Jimmie Higgins ' '' , " was a salute to the rank-and-file Socialist everyman , a committed volunteer who loyally performed the myriad of unpublicized and unglamorous laborious tasks that were essential to the successful functioning of any political organization . The Higgins character proved enduring , being further immortalized in a 1919 novel by Upton Sinclair , '' Jimmie Higgins : A Story . '' Whittaker Chambers refers to himself using that term in his 1952 memoir : One day , shortly after we had met , Sam Krieger proposed that I should do " Jimmie Higgins work . " He explained to me patiently that Jimmie Higgins is a character in one of Upton Sinclair 's novels or stories with a passion for lowly jobs . I shared no such passion , but I readily agreed , for I wanted to know the party from the ground up . I began with the '' Daily Worker '' , but not on its editorial staff ... He set me to doing the task that nobody else would do — newsstand collections for the '' Daily Worker '' . The '' Call '' also provided substantial original coverage of various labor disputes , such as the New York shirtwaist strike of 1909 and disasters such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
New York Call