SUPPORT FOR ALLIES

Southland Times, Issue 24597, 20 November 1941, Page 5

SUPPORT FOR ALLIES

CONVENTION OF C. 1.0. GREAT ENTHUSIASM (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) DETROIT, Nov. 18. The Congress of Industrial Organizations national convention greeted the resolution of all out support for President Roosevelts policy of aid for Britain, Russia and China with thunderous cheers today. Mr Sanders Genis, vice-presi-dent of the Textile Workers Union, declared he did not favour abandoning any of Labour’s principles, but he regarded the existing defence emergency as more important than helping 35,000 miners to get a “closed shop” now.

Mr Michael Quill, president of the Transport Workers’ Union, urged lull support for the Allies. “We have had trouble with Senator Nye and Mr Hoover, but the lone eagle will be turned into a lone vulture before we are finished with the Isolationists. At every mention of Mr Roosevelt’s foreign policy the delegates applauded. Banners were flung across the convention hall reading: “Adolf Loves Lindy,” and “Don’t be a Fifth Wheeler.” No one rose to challenge the resolution supporting Mr Roosevelt’s foreign policy. The president, Mr Philip Murray,, appealed for defence unity because this problem transcends in importance any other before this convention.” The resolution was adopted by a standing vote, which was called unanimous, although most of the delegates representing the United Mine Workers remained seated. DUTY OF LABOUR Mr Roosevelt, in his message to the convention, after extending greetings and felicitations to Mr Philip Murray, the president, reminded members that the annual conventions of American labour groups were symbols of freedom which all must make every sacrifice to maintain. “I have every confidence that your members, recognizing the imperative needs of the American people, in the interest of American defence will co-operate with all other American groups in the common and in the patriotic interest,” said the President. “Americans will demand such a contribution from management and labour and from all other groups for preservation of the home, _ the family and the religion of the nation.” Repeating part of his message to the American Federation of Labour convention, the President said: “American labour organizations today have a great responsibility. Enslaved workers all over the world look to their American brothers for the production of weapons which will make them free again. American workers cannot and must not fail them in their hour of need and our hour of need.” The convention’s resolution supporting Mr Roosevelt’s foreign policy condemned Hitler’s cold-blooded murder of innocent victims in occupied countlies, adding: “The Congress of Industrial Organizations declares it is of paramount importance that we immediately furnish all possible aid to, and completely co-operate with, Britain, the Soviet and China, the peoples of which countries are carrying on a heroic struggle to rid the world of Nazism, the enemy of mankind, and thereby I bring about the military annihilation of Hitler’s regime. This programme must be coupled with aggressive preparedness and active defence by the united efforts of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. National unity towards this end is essential. The efforts of any such as Lindbergh to disunite the American nation on such un-American issues as anti-Semitism must be ferreted out and exposed as Hitler’s ‘fifth column.’ The American people demand that all aides of Hitler in this country, be they our home-grown Quislings or representatives of his puppet states, such as Vichy, must not be permitted to cause dissension and to sow the seeds of disunity in this nation.”