The Illinois standard. [volume], September 25, 1948, Page 5, Image 5

About The Illinois standard. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1948-1949

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
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By ISABEL CARR
FROM all reports, the CIO’s Political Action Committee
(CIO-PAC), which has indorsed the Truman-Barkley ticket,
is having rough sledding easing those PAC dollar bills from
workers’ pockets.
Too early to estimate what CIO rank-and-file reaction
to PAC’s turnabout indorse
ment of Truman will be —
but it’s not hard to hazard a
guess.
Story in the Sept. 10 issue of
the CIO American Newspaper
Guild’s biweekly newspaper,
“The Guild Reporter,” is a good
indicator. It read in part:
“With the national elections
only eight weeks away, Guild
locals had raised only one-eight
eenth of their convention pledge
of $12,000, Guild PAC chairman
Dorothy Rockwell reported.
"The total sent to PAC head
quarters stood at $568.50. . . .
No voluntary contributions have
been received in the past two
weeks.”
* * *
CTO UNIONS in basic indus
try report the same apathy to
PAC . . . and Truman. Take
steel for example. Giant Local
65, United Steelworkers of
America (CIO), representing
some 11,500 steelworkers in the
Carnegie-Illinois South Works—
second largest steel plant in the
U S.—was unable to raise a sin
gle buck for PAC. Instead offi
cers reportedly dipped into the
union’s treasury to meet its
“educational” goal of $7,500.
* * *
AS WE predicted, Chicago Ty
pographical Union No. 16 (AFL)
is trying to settle its long strike
(since Nov. 24, 1947) against
Chicago’s five daily newspapers
by cracking the Hearst news
paper chain.
Tipoff came this week when
leaflets went out from No. 16’s
headquarters at 130 N. Wells,
urging Chicagoans not to buy the
“scab Herald-American.”
Incidentally, the typos’ radio
In the
Reader's
Interest
The ILLINOIS STANDARD
is intended to further the
best interests of the peo
ple of Illinois. As condi
tions permit, it will be in
creased in size in order
to give its readers wider
news coverage a n d a
greater variety of fea
tures. An important fac
tor in the success of this
program is advertising
income. It is, therefore,
IN THE READER'S INTER
EST to patronize STAND
ARD advertisers, so that
they will be encouraged
to continue to patronize
the STANDARD.
show is on at a new hour. “Meet
the Union Printers” can be heard
Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
nights, 8:45 p.m., WCFL.
* * *
WALLACE — pfagh! Oakes—
pfagh! MacDougall—pfagh! Not
one of these men has the least
standing with me or the Nation
al Association of Manufacturers.
I therefore fail to see how they
can have any qualifications for
office.”
That's Kernel Birdie McCorn
whole speaking. McCornwhole
cropped up this week in the “FE
Trib”—4-page publication of the
CIO Farm Equipment Workers
Oakes-Wallace Committee.
Although the editors of the
“Trib”—Milt Burns, Swen John
son, Fred Vollmar, and Forrest
Emerson—insist that any like
ness of McCornwhole to “any
one, living or dead or both, is
fantastic,” he sounds kind of
familiar to os.
* * *
ONCE AGAIN Chicago's the
center of the nation’s 1,350,000
railroad workers’ wage negotia
tions.
So far, union officials say, the
railroads haven’t come across
with any offers in the way of a
third round pay boost.
These are railway workers’
demands:
1. Pres. A. F. Whitney of the
Brotherhood of Railway Train
men and President Harry Fraser
of the Order of Railway Con
ductors (both unaffiliated) are
asking the nation’s 132 Class I
and 250 short-line railroads for
a 25 per cent increase.
2. The second group of oper
ating unions — Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, Brother
hood of Locomotive Firemen &
Enginemen (both unaffiliated)
and Switchmen’s Union (AFL)
—are seeking an 18 per cent
raise.
3. Sixteen unions representing
one million non-operating rail
way employes — maintenance,
telegraph and clerical workers—
want a 5-day, 40-hour week, plus
a flat 25c hourly pay raise.
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Far Eastern expert tells
of the battle for China
Here’s a 10-second quiz: In what country do the Com
munists favor free enterprise?
The answer is China, says energetic, enthusiastic Maud j
Russell, executive director of the Committee for a Demo
cratic Far Eastern Policy.
Miss Russell, who lived in
China for 26 years, contends
that the paradox is not as
fantastic as it seems on the sur
face.
During a brief visit to Chi
cago this week, she told the Illi
nois Standard that the Chinese
Communists are working toward
socialism.
“All you have to do is read
the writings of Mao Tse-tung
and other Communist leaders,”
she points out.
But she sticks to her guns
about the Communists' favoring
free enterprise.
‘‘They look at it this way,”
Miss Russell explains. “They
consider socialism to be an ad
vanced stage of society. China,
on the other hand, has not yet
THIS WOODCUT by a Chi/iese artist shows a scene ct a rural
selective service draft board in the land of dictator Chiang
Kai-shek.
Welfare and retirement fund
key issue at PMWA meeting
By ADAM CIIURA
(Financial Secretary, Local 1,
Progressive Mine Workers
of America)
SPRINGFIELD—A sore spot
—improvement of the Miners
Welfare and Retirement Fund—
is a key issue in the second week
of this 9th constitutional conven
tion of the Progressive Mine
Workers of Illinois meeting here.
There is friction on the ques
tion of whether or not former
miners who lost their jobs
through strikes can be allowed to
enjoy benefits of the Welfare
and Retirement Fund. The fund
is now restricted to those miners
who have worked since June 1,
1946.
It seems that the whole wel
fare idea is still in the baby
stage. Some delegates fear ex
hausting the fund, and they ar
gue that the fund should be al
lowed to accumulate before
spreading it too thin.
However, others feel that if
this is done, the mine operators
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—seeing the fund accumulate—
would press for a reduction in
the 20 cents (per ton of coal
mined) they kick in to the fund.
This is the way the present
welfare fund works: $100 per
month to members who have
passed 62 having worked 20
years in the mines (on retire
ment); $1000 death benefit or
$500 funeral expenses; sick bene
fits of $15 per week for 26
weeks, plus hospital and surgery
expenses with a $6 hospital room
paid for 30 days.
There are some 87 Illinois
delegates here, plus Kentucky
PMWA members who received
honorary invitations to attend
as observers. Although the con
vention gets hot sometimes,
everyone is enjoying full rights
on the floor.
Last week, delegates assured
miners of rank-and-file control
of the union by reserving eligi
bility of candidates for office to
those PMWA members who have
attended half of their local meet
ings and worked jn the mines
two years previous to their
candidacy.
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emerged from feudalism in the
areas still held by Chiang Kai
shek’s regime.
“Therefore the Chinese Com
munists figure that China must
first become a capitalist nation,
before it can move on to a
socialist state.
“That's the reason they’re
helping small business men in
the liberated areas of China.”
Miss Russell believes that
"Chiang’s feudal-fascist govern
ment cannot last more than a
few months.” Thirty-eight per
cent of China's land area and
population already have been
liberated, she points out, de
spite millions of dollars worth
of financial and military aid
supplied to Chiang by the U S.
Contrary to newspaper propa
ganda, according to Miss Rus
sell. the northern liberated areas
are not under Communist doml- '
nation ‘'Although the struggle
against Chiang is led by the
Communists, only one-third of
the public officials in liberated
China are Communists,” she
says. The other two-thirds are
members of the Democratic
League, the Kuomintang. or of
no party.
‘‘What’s going on in China is
a social revolution,” says Miss
Russell. ‘ The people demand it
—and they won’t let us, or the
Russians, or anybody else step
in to run their country. They
want to reform it themselves—•
now.”
That’s why Miss Russell
agrees with Henry Wallace's
viewpoint on China. Wallace
says:
‘‘More and more it becomes
certain that the Chinese fiasco
will be the first to drive home
to the American people the com
plete bankruptcy of our foreign
policy.”
Mass meeting for
Ingram children:
son will speak
A 12-year-old boy will be the
guest of honor at a mass meeting
to be held at 3 p.m. this Sun
day, Sept. 26, at the DuSable
Community Center, 49th and
Wabash.
The boy is James Ingram, one
of the children of Mrs. Rosa Lee
Ingram, Negro sharecropper of
Leslie, Ga., who was sentenced
to life imprisonment for killing
a white farmer who had at
tacked her. Two other Ingram
boys, one 13, and the other 15,
also received life imprisonment
terms.
Money raised at the meeting,
sponsored by DuSable Lodge No.
751, International Workers Or
der, will go toward the education
and welfare of the Ingram chil
dren.
Speakers at the meeting will
include Loring B. Moore, attor
ney for the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People here, and Dorothy Bush
nell Cole, Progressive candidate
for Congress from the 9th dis
trict.
Aid for elder citizens
A program of state aid for the
aged and incapacitated will be
drawn up Oct. 10 at an all-day
legislative conference in the
Midland Hotel, ll? W. Adams.
A nd Ward
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Sat.—Sept. 25
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