The Butler County press. [volume], April 26, 1935, Image 2

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THE PRESS
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF ORGANIZED LABOR
OF HAMILTON AND VICINITY
HtSi AttHI
10 LABOR
Members
Ohio Labor Press Association
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Issued Weekly at 326 Market Street
Telephone 1296 Hamilton, Ohio
Endorsed by the Trades and Labor
Council of Hamilton, Ohio
Endorsed by the Middletown Trades
and Labor Council of Middletown, O.
FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1935
PICKETING RIGHT JUDICIALLY
AFFIRMED
In 1925 the state of Illinois enact­
ed a labor injunction on limitation law
which affirmed the right of peaceful
picketing during strikes.
In a case of picketing during an up
holsterers' strike involving Local 18
of the International Upholsterers
Union, the anti-union employers con
tested the constitutionality of the law
before the Illinois supreme court. The
court ruled that the law violated nei
ther the constitution of Illinois nor
the constitution of the United State
With a decision of the United States
Supreme Court affirming the right of
peaceful picketing already a matter of
record, the anti-union employers rush
ed to Washington with the demand
that the nation's highest judicial body
overthrow the Illinois decision and de­
clare that the right to picket contro
verted the constitutional property
rights of Illinois employers. The
Upholsterers' Union fought the ap
peal.
The supreme court refused to review
the action of the Illinois court. Tht
refusal merely reaffirmed the court's
former opinion that peaceful picket
ing does not violate the constitution
of the United States.
In commenting on the refusal of
the supreme court, Victor Olander
secretary of the Illinois State Feder
ation of Labor, said:
"The constitutionality of the Illinois
injunction limitation act of 1925, de
claring the right of peaceful picketing
during strikes, is definitely settled
by the action of the U. S. Supreme
Curt in refusing to review the deci
sion of the Illinois supreme court up
holding the act. Thus another mile
stona has been erected along the path
way of labor's progress to a greater
freedom. The Upholsterers' Union is
to be congratulated upon carrying the
legal battle to a successful conclu
-.0:-
CONCERNING BANK
EMBEZZLEMENTS
A bank teller in New York is in
jail, charged with embezzling about
$2,000. He has served that same bank
for 31 years. He went in as a messen
ger, and probably he got two or three
dollars a week at first—banks are
very thrifty in dealing with their un
derlings. By patient, hard work, he
climbed to the post of teller, at a sal
ary of $200 a month. On this magnifi
cent sum, he did not marry but he
took care of his mother and sister, and
was active in church work.
Then his salary was cut $25 a month
on account of the depression. Soon
afterward, he began to help himself to
small sums. His takings when caught
were something over $2,000 or con
siderably more than the amount which
the bank "saved" by cutting his sal­
ary.
Of course, he shouldn't have done it.
Small thievery is always silly as well
as wrong. The New York financiers
whom Ferdinand Pecora put over the
bumps in the senate investigation
two years ago went after sums that
were worth while. They used their
financial power to unload doubtful se
curities on "country banks"—Wall
street regards everything as "coun
try" that is outside of the lower end
of Manhattan Island. They financed
the wholesale gambling that brought
the crash of October, 1929, which
launched the depression.
And, as a prize exhibition of mean
ness, many bankers who joined the
much advertised pool to "support the
prices of stocks" and "steady the
market" sold stocks short with their
left hands while holding up their right
hands as evidence of their patriotism
and self-sacrifice. And they haven't
gone to jail.
If New York had any sense of pro
portion, she would not prosecute any
crooked banker who had stolen less
than a million dollars. To send a petty
weakling to jail for dipping in the
bank's till after the bank had dipped
into his pay envelope, while letting
the whole Wall street bunch of bandits
run at large is somehow revolting to
one's sense of fair play.
:o:
WAGES, FOR LABOR AND
FOR CAPITAL
The wages of capital are paid, at
ieast when the capital is invested in a
monopoly.
The net earnings of the Bell Sys
tem and the Bell Telephone Company
of Canada in 1932 were $24,484,984
short of meeting their dividends. But
the dividends were paid—by digging
into the surplus. In 1933, the shortage
was $24,443,806 but again the divi­
dends were paid by recourse to the
surplus. For 1934, according to a re
port just made, the same companies
had to draw on the surplus for only
$3,460,238 to make the payments
They expect to show profits ample
for dividends this year.
And they still have combined sur
pluses totalling $144,046,49.'!.
As for the wages of labor, they
must take their chances. Mote than
$50,000,000 was drawn from the sur
pluses of the Bell companies to pay
wages to capital but if a piu-gged
nickel has been taken from that
source to maintain employment and
pay the wages of labor, no mention
has been made of it.
THE CLEAREST SUCCESS OI
THE NEW DEAL
The number of young men in CCC
work will be doubled as soon as camps
can be built for them. There are
rou-ghly, 300,000 in camps now, there
will be 600,000 before the close oi
the year. And apparently everyone
approves.
The CCC is the most perfectly sue
cessful of all the New Deal measures
The danger that it would compete with
ordinary labor and the fear that it
would be used as a military school
both have vanished. As for military
training, they don't get it and so for
from competing with ordinary work
ers, these lads, for the time they are
in the camps, are off the labor market
Meanwhile, they are doing useful work
which no one else would do, living
under healthy conditions, and getting
a zest in life which is impossible for
the unemployed in a slum.
William James, probably Amer
ica's foremost psychologist, outlined
many years ago a scheme which has
many curious resemblances to the
CCC—and many differences. James
one of our earliest pacifists, wanted
to preserve the military virtues while
abolishing war, and he also wanted to
make the young of the prosperous
classes realize that this earth is only
"a partly hospitable planet," and that
there is a "permanently hard an
sour" foundation for our higher life.
"There is nothing to make one in
dignant," says James, "in the mere
fact that life is hard, that men toil
and suffer pain. The planetary con
ditions, once for all, are such, and we
can stand it. But that so many men,
THE BUTfeEK COUNTY PRESS
by mere accident of birth, should
have a life of nothing else but toil
and pain and hardness and inferiority
imposed upon them while others, no
more deserving, never get any taste
of this campaigning life at all—this
may well rouse indignation."
James suggested conscription of all
able-bodied youth to a season of the
hard and often unpleasant work
which, for all our machines, still re
mains to be done and he was par­
ticularly anxious that the youngsters
born to luxury should be put
through this course of training. We
are many miles from the goal. There
is no conscription to the CCC, the
competition with labor, almost inevit
able under James' plan, is avoided by
the simple method of putting the CCC
at work which otherwise wouldn't be
done and it is the boys with no
privileges at home instead of those
with too many that fill the CCC camps.
But in the direct grasp of facts and
meeting of heads, the two plans are
two plans are one at bottom, however
they may diverge.
:o:
BUSINESS AS SOCIAL SERVICE
Labor's position that industry
should be operated largely for social
service instead of for maximum prof
its is receiving support from a num
ber of business leaders. Among them
is Edward A. Filene, Boston merchant,
who frequently discusses economic
subjects.
In his testimony before the finance
committee of the United States sen
ate in favor of the extension of the
national industrial recovery act, Mr.
Filene asserted that there is really
no logical conflict between the higher
interests of business and the general
welfare. He said:
"The trouble is that there used
to be just a conflict. There was a
time when business could get
more profits if the masses got
less. There was a time when em­
ployers could make more profits
if their employes got less wages
and it was during that time that
most of us business men develop
ed our theories of business. But
that time has passed. The trou
ble is that the theories are still
sticking around. All that business
net ds for recovery today is to re
co\er from these theories."
Mr. Filene was equally explicit in
his statement that the depression
which started in 1U2U was actually
caused by the unequal distribution of
the earnings of industry, which was
and still is, the dominating theory
of business. On this point he said:
"When we became able to pro
duce enough to go around, one of
two things just had to happen. If
either had to be passed around or
the whole machinery of production
would choke up. It wasn't passed
ai'ound and the machinery did
choke. That's almost the com
plete story of the depression."
Unfortunately most of our busines^
leaders are still animated with the
theory of maximum profits for those
who own and control the system of
production and distribution as the ma
jor purpose of industry, with the re­
sult that with the army of unem
ployed numbering millions, the gov
eminent is compelled to appropriate
$4,880,000,000 to provide work for
those whom industry has locked out
And the depression continues.
:o:
WHAT NEXT?
An electrical green house which will
make it possible for small household
ers to grow flowers in the winter
months without the cost of installing
expensive steam heating equipment
and which causes flowers to bloom two
to six weeks earlier than they do in
ordinary hothouses, has been an
nounced by the Boyce Thompson In
stitute for Plant Research at Yonkers
N. Y. Heat and light are provided by
ten 500-watt adjustable lamps, placed
in two rows to give equal distribution
of light.
—:o:
WISDOM
The peoples of many countries are
being taxed to the point of poverty
and starvation in order to enable gov
ernments to engage in a mad race in
armament which, if permitted to con
tinue, may well result in war.—Frank
lin D. Roosevelt.
:o:
Advertise in The Press.
The Cherry
'M Where with our
Little Hatchet
we tell the truth
about many things, sometimes pro
foundly, sometimes flippantly,
sometimes recklessly
Governor George T. Earle, of Penn
sylvania, is conducting an investiga
tion of "academic freedom" at the
University of Pittsburgh, sometimes
called the Mellon Training School for
es-men. To date, the records of the
investigation show a strong resem
blance to the history of snakes in Ire
land. There ain't no snakes in Ireland,
and there ain't no academic freedom
at the University of Pittsburgh.
One professor, Dr. F. E. Butel, told
that he was forced to resign from the
•faculty because he had testified before
the committee of the United States
senate which was probing the cam
paign expenses of William S. Vare.
Another was chased out after he had
publicly denounced the barbarous con
ditions in the Pennsylvania coal fields.
Ar other was fired because he col
laborated in writing an article for the
American Mercury, dealing with the
brutality of Pennsylvania's coal and
ron police. Wonder if he told the
tory of the murder of John Barkow
kil by a capain in that gang of thugs,
employed by Mellon's Pittsburgh Coal
Co., released from prison where he had
been sent for brutal assault on another
in?
The latest to be ditched by 1h'
University of Pittsburgh was Ih.
Ralph E. Turner, who got the grand
bounce last summer. Turner was
obnoxious to the chancellor of i 1
university that the wonder is he wasn 't
fired long before. He was accuse*
of liberal opinions which "hurt tlx
university down town." This cryptic
phrase was explained when the chan
cellor said that the trustees of tli
university were business men, am
among them there is very great is
content."
But the climax came when Turner
joined a society which was working
for old age pensions, unemployment
insurance, relief for the unemployed
regulation of sweatshops, and ratifi
cation of the federal child labor
amendment. In the face of such rad
icalism as that, the university just
had to get rid of him—and did. The
chancellor told some people who ask
ed about that he wished his profes
sors would not make speeches on "sub
jects that are none of their damned
business."
'f-
New York city is abolishing the bar
rel organ. This marks the passing of
a unique educational institution
Where else can city youth of today
become familiar with the old tunes?
Where else can they hear about the
"Bicycle Built for Two," or Turkey
in the Straw," or some things a deal
closer to the classical, "Ah, I have
Sighed to Rest Me," for example?
Mayor La Guardia should at least
have read Noyes' poem before indor
ing such cruel tactics:
'There's a barrel organ carolling
across the humble street,
In the city as the sun sinks low
And although the music's Verdi
there's a world to make it sweet
And it pulses with the sunset's
glow."
Government Ownership
of Railroads Urgec
By A. F. of L. News Service.
Washington.—Senator Burton K
Wheeler, of Montana, chairman of the
senate interstate commerce commit
tee. itif roflui e,] a bill nrovi.ling fo
When Your Head
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Apply Va-tro-nol
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USED IN TIV-
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A Leader for
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government ownership and operation
of railroads beginning next January.
Mr. Wheeler has been an advocate
of public ownership of utilities for
many years. Although he conferred
with Joseph B. Eastman, federal co
ordinator of transportation, in
drafting the bill, Mr. Wheeler stated
that the co-ordinator does not recom
mend ownership of the railroads ami
did not suggest the measure.
"I feel that government ownership
of the railroads is ultimately coming
and that for the protection of the in
vestors it should be done now," Sena
tor Wheeler said. He added: "Also,
this bill would guarantee a better
transportation system, with lower
freight rates to the public."
Raleigh, N. C.—The house of repi
sentatives rejected, by a vote of
to 49, the minority report which would
have placed upon the calendar Repi
sentative Ernest Gardner's resolution
RED JACKET
COAL
POCAHONTAS
ANTHRACITE
KOPPERS COKE
Ambulance Service
Phone 35
for the ratification of the child labor
amendment to the federal constitu
tion. The measure was supported by
Governor Ehringhaus. The house lim
ited the discussion to 10 minutes.
The Mecca Cafe
38 High St.
Schwenn Coal Company
Next to New City Bldg.
and Bus Station
Beers, Wines, Liquor
We Serve a
25c Noonday Lunch
Also Complete Line
of Other Orders
Tables for Ladies
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COAL AND COKE
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Robert G.Taylor Mortuary
Formerly
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Funeral Directors
Regulation
SALES TAX
Chairs and Tables Rented
17 So. Street
Punch Cards
Now Available For All
MERCHANTS
These "Sales Tax Punch Cards" are invalu
able to grocers, druggists, and all merchants
having small unit sales.
They enable the customers to save money
by paying one tax only.
To wide-awake merchants they offer oppor
tunities of getting and holding the custom
er's trade—in short, they are a real "SALES
BOOSTER."
These "Sales Tax Punch Cards" are made to
conform to the Ohio Tax Commission rul
ings. Made in different denominations.
Printed on stiff bristol. Each card num
bered. Ready for immediate delivery.
Phone 1296 for additional information.
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326 Market Street Phone 1296
HAMILTON, OHIO
Forty-Five Years
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