RECORD DEMONSTRATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26485, 12 June 1947, Page 5

RECORD DEMONSTRATION

AMERICAN UNIONISTS OPPOSITION TO LABOUR BILL Rec. 11 p.m. NEW YORK, June 10. In what is described as the greatest demonstration in New York’s history, 150,000 Congress of Industrial Organisation members marched to Madison Square Garden to-night to hear 15 speakers condemn the Taft-Hartley Labour Bill and to demand that President Truman veto the measure.

Marching 20 abreast, the unionists took three hours to pass along Eighth avenue to the Garden. They chanted continuously, “We demand the veto, Mr Truman,” and bands played a theme tune based on the familiar hymn, “ Hold the Fort, for I am Coming.” The Mayor, Mr William O’Dwyer, told both the packed auditorium and the huge overflow gathering, “ The Republicans are out to smash your unions. They gave us labour spies, yellow dog contracts, strike-breakers, blacklists, and lock-outs—before the Wagner Act became law.”

The C. 1.0. president, Mr Philip Murray, said that if the Bill became law it would work a fundamental change in the American form of Government. “Instead of a Government elected to serve the people, it will be a Government bound by law to do the bidding of employers against their workers,” he said. “ Can this be called by any other name than Fascism? ”