American Letter

Maoriland Worker, Volume 11, Issue 180, 26 May 1920, Page 3

American Letter

By LAURENCE TOBD

Washington, March 26, 1920 Labor in PoliticsAll at once, the Republican and Democratic politicians who have directed the anti-Labor politics of the present Congress and the Administra.ion, which reached 'their cljmax in the 'coal strike injunction, the Palmer raids and the Esch-Cummihs railroad law, have awakened to" the fact thai organised Labor has gone into* politics on a tremendous scale. ! Will Hays, who'offered a 10,000 - "dollars prize to any schoolboy who wou)d write the most tempting platform for Penrose's candidates to run on, is desperately' trying to get some of (he; big Labor men to come into camp.' This Labor unrest, in Hays's view, is getting awfully dangerous to 'good old reactionary political four-flushings! Hence the 'importance of the enlistment of Labor leaders in ihe Hays organisation. \ According to information received by 'railroad brotherhood men Here, Daniel Cies, editor of the "Trainmen's Magazine," has agreed to help Hays' special committee draft the "Labor plank" of the proposed. Republican platform. This favour by Cies followed the flat refusal of the group of four executive's _>£> the four independent railroad brotherhoods to give any advice to Hays' >sommitiee, tecause of the notoriously aMi-Labor attitude and action of the Republican majority in Congress. W. G. Lee, head of the Trainmen, was one of these' four executives. His editor seems to be free to adopt an opposite course. And, Lee himself has endorsed Gen. Wood in the Ohio primary as against Harding. Wood's manager in tlie East, Norman Gould, is advertised as unfair to organised Labor. In view of Hays' activity, and in view of charges by subordinate brotherhood oiiiciuls that Hays has been paying money to Pat. Richardson, head of the American Federation of Railway Workers, and to Coyle, the head of the dual Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, in Boston, the board of executives has voted to issue at once, direct to each of the 500,000 members of the four brotherhoods, a statement of the record in Congress of every Congressman and Senator. This record will show the vote in the House on ihe Anderson amendment, which prevented anti-strike legislation; the vote on the Esch Bill as it fi-st passed the House; the vote on the Cummins Bill in the Senate; the vote on the Conference Bill in the Senate; the vote on the motion in the House to recommit the conference repor,; and finally the vote in the House to pass the Conference Bill. While the independent brotherhoods are doing this, and are calling to the attention of their membership the face that the final vote on the Railroad Bill in the House and in the Senate is the final test of these lawmakers' stand towards Labor, the A.F. of L. National Nonpartisan Poli.ical Campaign Committee has been issuing statements almost daily, and has almost reached the point of agreeing with the brotherhoods that the Esch Bill vote is the test of whether a memL-er is to be opposed even if his record otherwise be friendly. Several conferences of legislative agents have been held withMr. Gompers, and all differences are on the way to be smoothed out. Now comes the Nonpartisan Political Campaign Committee with a direct request to every one of 40,000 local unions in its affiliation, that each union select a political committee of three members, to act with the political committee selected by the central body to which the local is attached. There will, within a few weeks, le 50,000 committees of various kinds in this system of political organisation of the Labor movement. Control oi Railways— On/ the question of the endorsement or non-endorsement of the public, ownership and democratic control of railroads hangs a great deal of the possible success of the A.F. of L. plan. Demand for a straight public ownership declaration is the rallying point of the Labor Party forces in the big industrial States; Mr. Gompers has thus far delayed a definite'answer 10 this demand, taking the ground that there is no need to declare in favour of the Plumb Plan or any other instance of public ownership in this campaign. However, the drift of sentiment among ihe men who will comprise the A.F. of L. political committees in the central Labor bodies throughout the country is so strongly favourable to the Plumb Plan that it is now likely that some public ownership plank will be written -into the final platform on which Labor will fight for control of the next Congress. A.F. oi* L. and Labor Parly— - Reports in the metropolitan press that the A.F. of L. executives and the Labor Party are to engage in a civil war within' the Labor movement are denied here. Federation chiefs are probably ready to make terms with the radical central Labor bodies 1n Chicago, Seattle, New York and elsewhere, if these central bodies want peace. A common cause and a common enemy are sufficient to sink all the differences th«u may exist between such men as Mr. Gompers on the one hand and Mr. Fitzpatrick of Chicago on the other. Each would like the other to show the first sign of readiness to make friends, so that Mr. Gompers may the more gleefully give public approval to candidates picked by organised Labor and nominated by the Labor Party. What would please Mr.* Gompers most of all would be the nutting of Labor Party candidates into the old party primaries, and have them use -their energies to make the platform of the old parties acceptable to Labor. Of course the Labor Party promoters refuse to abandon their own organisation. They are at a deadlock with the Federation executive on this issue of principle. ..Waking History— Whcher Federation or Labor Party, both sides know as clearly as does Will Hays or Mitchell' Palmer that this year's political campaign by the Labor movement in the United States opens a new chapter in the country's history. Labor as a class 'has moved into politics, to fight for an American standard of living for every working class family, and to capture the Congress of the United States as the first step towards that goal. - Labor Dailies Wanted— Its chief handicap in this battle is the absence of a daily public grass in sympathy with Labor. John F. McNainee, in a leading editorials in the current 4ssue of the Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen's Magazine, says, ''In; this-crisis it seems to us that the leaders of the Labor movement (and in this classification we embrace every legitimate Labor or-

r~T — : —"7 r T7' < — ganisation) should without further delay take steps to establish a daily press. These Labor organisations control millions.of dollars, a fraction of which could, in our opinion, be invested to tremendous advantage, financially and otherwise, "in the establishing of a daily Labor public press.

"If the Labor movement of Great Britain can maintain Labor daily papers, .why cannot the Labor movement of the United States do nuewise?

"These papers need not necessarily te extravagant in their proportions, as papers of moderate size can do tremendously effective educational work and ai the same time derive remunerative returns from the sale of advertising space. . . .

"We are absolutely convinced that the establishment of such a press is essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the producing class, politically, economically, and industrially." ."■liners' Conditions— ' If there were established throughout the country this year the chain of daily Labor newspapers that- has been proposed and is now being considered by some of the bigger international unions, the voters would iearn more about .the decision in the bituminous coal miners' case, which is about to be written into an agreement between the operators and the United Mine Worker's of America.

The'majority • decision, written by Henry M. Robinson, chairman, and Rembrandt Peale, member of the special 'Coal Commission on behalf of :he operators, grants a wage advance for pick and machine miners of twenty-four cents per ton. This means that pick miners get a rise of" 1.25 dollars to' 1.50 dollars per day over their wages under the old agreement which, terminated last Novomler. Machine miners get a rise of about 2 dollars per day. On the other hand, Meysrs. Robinson and Peale refuse to accept any reduction of working hours. They say thai the miners' argument that a six-hour day will mean steady employment for' all the miners, and an increased output, is false. Instead, they predict, any such change would attract great numbers of other workers into the mines, and would intensify tho unemployment in slack seasons. The majority shed crocodile* tears in this fashion: "While we are in full sympathy with the miners in their aspiration for a fuller life, we cannot help but feel that eight hours :i day is not too .much to work under present circumstances."

John P. While, member of the Commission on the miners' behalf, filed a minority report which showed up tho hypocrisy of the majority and their glossing over of the economic crimes of the operators and dealers in coal during the war period.

"From 1913 till October 31, 1919," he said, "ihe mine workers' rate, v per ton increased 0.23 dollars, the operators' receipts increased 1.41 dollars, and the retail dealers receipts increased 2.10 dollars.

"The mine workers' pre-war earnings did not permit a subsistence wage. While the 24 cents per ton increase on pick and machine mining will not reflect a- reasonable standard of living, of health and of comfort into the lives of the mine workers, it will materially improve their conditions, and in she interest of honourable compromise I assent thereto."

He then proceeds to details of his own plan of wage adjustments for all labor about the mines, and proposes 'that al'.er April 1, 1921, the maximum hours shall not exceed eight underground hours per** day and six days per week. This abolishes the rule of eiyht hours from "bank to bank," milking ihe day's, time include that .spent between entering and leaving the mouth of the mine.

Summing up a masterly discussion of the living wage, Mr. White says:

"It it; clear, therefore, that an increase of 27 per .cent in present wage rates would fall far short of raising these workers to a level of health and reasonable comfort. Until this level is attained ihe mine workers will remain on the precarious level of mere subsistence —where the great body of them now are. It is from Ihcse deplorable conditions' that we wish to escape, and our hope has '; een that 'we would lie granted a living wage so that the workers in the mines and their families might arise from the economic darkness and despair that now engulfs them."