The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1922. AMERICA'S GREAT PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 300, 19 December 1922, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1922. AMERICA'S GREAT PROBLEM.

■ For tfte cause that lacks assistant*, For the wrong that needs resistant*, For tie future in the distance, And in* food that we can do.

The trial of miners indicted for murder in the State of Illinois re-directs the attention of Americans and the world to the graveet problem confronting the American people—the establishment of due respect for law and order. Of the actual facts of the murders at Tlerrin in June last there can hardly be any doubt. Men working at the mine during a strike, after having surrendered to attacking strikers under promise of safe conduct, were murdered under circumstances of almost incredible savagery. But, as is so often the case in America, the case has been complicated by factors that are rarely present in British law. It took weeks to empanel the jury, and no doubt to the wrangling of counsel over every man who came forward was added fear that the lives of jurymen would not be safe. Intimidation has appeared in the case. Farmer witnesses have been threatened with death, and farmers have retaliated by forming a secret society and announcing that for every witness killed a toll of ten on the other side will be taken, l.'nder the circumstances the chances that justice will lie done are not bright. The trouble is deep-seated, and has .its roots in many American conditions. In this Herrin case the whole story has not yet been told. That the strikers committed a series of dreadful crimes is certain, but we do not yet know the whole truth about the provocation they received. It is alleged that the mineowners brought strike-breakers to the mines, and when some of the .strikers went forward to reconnoitre they were shot by the mine guards. It is significant that the grand jury, besides indicting strikers, held morally responsible the president of the company at whose mine the trouble occurred, for "the flaunting of»arms" in such a manner that "it was a challenge certain to be accepted." Such methods have been common among capitalists in America, but if the law is to be elevated to a position of due respect they must be abandoned. The attitude of a section of the employing class towards the workers is part of the problem that faces the country. The fight for unionism has been won in fengland; in America it is still being waged, and the uncompromising opposition of some employers and their use of violence is simply an encouragement to workers to grasp any weapon of offence, retaliation, or revenge. An organiser among steel workers, for example, relates that when he attempted to organise a movement against a seven-day week and,a twelvehour day he was kidnapped, put on a' train, and run out of the State. In the coal districts of West Virginia, eo it is alleged, the mine-owners "employ hundreds of armed men, the majority being of the most desperate character, to coerce and intimidate the miner and his family into strict obedience to the will of the operators." Many of these gunmen are sworn in as deputy sheriffs. Confidence in the swiftness and impartiality of the law is lacking. Many believe that the capitalist can defeat any attempt to use the Courts. It is very deplorable that when feeling is aroused by a strike these things should inflame feeling and assist to drive men to crime, but they help to account for a good deal. This, of course, is only one phase of American lawlessness, but the partial responsibility of the employing class for the outrages that so often mark industrial disputes must be noted if one is to understand the whole situation. Nor does a sign of improvement appear anywhere, at any rate to the eyes of a distant observer. Rather does the tion tend to get worse. Lynching still goes on merrily, and the hope of th« negro, a Bill in Congress to prevent it, has been shelved. Not only has the Ku Klux -Klan been revived, but it has spread from the South to the West and North, and we read that in Oregon it is terrorising the State. The failure of the law to cope with crime is denounced by the highest authorities, but no vigorous step is taken to deal with so grave an evil. The outlook for a hundred million people, among whom respect for law and order seems to be steadily declining, is dark. The lesson for British communities is plain. Wherever the Briton goes he takes with him respect for the law. and sets up a system that works with dispatch and impartiality and enforces its decrees. He has nothing more precious in the equipment that has built up the Empire. Let him see that this posses-

sion is carefully guarded and exposed to no unnecessary risk. Jt is much easier to bring the law into dangerous contempt than to restore it to its original position.