Evening star. [volume], April 02, 1937, Page A-8, Image 8

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
LAW FEAR HELD
STRIKE CURE CURD
SPublic Seen as Victory Once
It Wakes Up to Labor
’5 Situation.
This is the sixth and last of a
series of articles by Mr. White on
the changing industrial scene in the
United States. The writer has
•« talked with many leaders of labor
and industry in gathering material
for this series.
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.
The rights and wrongs of the sit
down strike, skimmed off after boiling,
simmer to this: One's afraid and the
other dassent. This is a cryptic re
mark. meaning that neither the own
ers of the property under trespass
nor the trespassers themselves dare
to appeal to the law.
The Wagner act. establishing the
National Labor Relations Board, has
not been declared unconstitutional by :
the Supreme Court. This law is still
on the Federal statute books. It pro
vides for the adjudication of all the
grievances which the Lewis C. I. O.
complains about and provides em
ployers with a means for polling the
workers to see if John L. Lewis' con
tention is right or wrong that he
has a majority of any industry wherein
he has called a strike.
Why are these two contenders, Lewis
and his trespassers, and the various
owners of the tools of industry where
in sit-down strikers are trespassing—
why are they gun-shy of the law?
The answer seems to be that neither
side wants to give the public a break
fit the risk of its own hide. To put
it otherwise: The labor legislation now
on the books was written to produce
industrial peace through justice. Jus
tice to whom? Primarily the public,
the third party to these strikes. Now.
how about the public—meaning: Who
is the public?
Public Not All Labor. I
Mr, Lewis of the C. I. O. contends
there is no public outside of labor, that
we are all industrial producers first
and consumers afterward. In a class
less, proletarian society, this would be
true. In a country dominated by a
democratic middle class, this is not
true, and however much wishful think
ing Mr. Lewis may inject into this
situation, he can't make a proletarian
one-class country out of an overwhelm
ingly middle-class country. So he
fears, quite properly, any legislation
like the Wagner act. He won't go to
court for fear of the decision of the
court.
Evidently John Lewis of the C. I. O.
feels his $500,000 contribution to the
Roosevelt campaign has bought him
bur beloved Executive and. as an in
cidental hereditary appurtenance
thereunto appertaining, like the tail
With the hide, Congress is thrown in
with the title to the White House.
But not so the courts. Therefore,
Lew-is doesn’t cotton to the courts nor
to a legal solution of the labor prob
Arrange Cherry Blossom Ball
Charles Michelson, publicity director of the Democratic
National Committee, and Mrs. May Thomas Evans, assistant
director of the committee's women’s division, arranging last
minute details for the Cherry Blossom ball to be held at the
Washington Hotel tomorrow night.
The ball is under the auspices of the Women's National
Democratic Council. —Harris-Ewing Photo.
lem. For, with Mr. Lewis, it is not at
base an industrial, but rather a po
litical problem.
Courts Require Secrets.
But how much better are the bosses,
any of the bosses, of steel, motors,
textiles, rubber or what-not? Have
they gone to the Labor Relations
Board, demanding an election and an
arbitration? Hardly, at least not with
any unanimity. To go to the courts
ultimately means that capital will
have to put its cards on the table. It
will have to expose to the public gase
certain figures about profits, trade
practices, labor policy. The La Fol
lette Committee has unearthed enough
shameful and disgusting facts about
capital's employment of spies, thugs
and gunmen to offset any little pecca
dilloes of revolutionary proletarian
aspiration cropping out of Mr. Lewis.
Neither the pot nor the kettle in this j
case is a dizzy blond. Both run
heavily to the brunette shades.
In the meantime, William Green of
the A. F. of L. has publicly washed
his hands of the sit-down strike. He
would. He is not running a class
conscious proletarian show. He is
running an industrial bargain counter.
It is the policy of the American Fed
eration of Labor to bargain for each
craft independently, and to let the
other crafts take their turn at the
boss’ desk when the time comes. The
Lewis organization rounds up all of
labor in an industry, from the rousta
bouts to the skilled boys with trade
secrets, and Lewis represents them ill
at the boss’ table, a united front with
class-conscious political aims.
With Crossed Fingers.
They have a half million in the
presidential Jaclc-pot and a quit-claim
deed on Congress. No bargain counter
Is this outfit! The sit-down strike,
while it is not a crime, is a trespass,
a tort, which is a legal expression
for a crime with its lingers crossed 1
The labor law now on the books,
but pending in the Federal courts,
was written under the eagle eye of
Mr. Green in a day before John Lewis
came Walliesimpsoning around the
White House. The Wagner act is
aimed at the sharp practices of capi
tal; so today one is afraid and the
other dassent.
When the country, that is to say,
unhypnotized public opinion, takes
charge of Congress, the American
people may demand and obtain, de
spite Mr. Lewis and Mr. Green, labor
laws similar to those which have
produced Industrial peace under ap
proximate industrial justice in Great
Britain. These laws make labor re
sponsible for its contracts and for
the acts of its accredited representa
tives. These laws provide for arbitra
tion, but it is more or less com
Enroll for 8»rinr Classes Now Forminr In
SPANISH
Famous Conversational Berlitz Method
THE BERLITZ SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES
1115 Conn. Ave. NAtional 0270
Alto 10 Weekt "Travelers' Course”
pulsory on each side, something which
labor today shrinks away from.
But tomorrow also is a day. These
laws will eventually come out of the
heart of a middle class republic when
it takes its eyes off the snake charmer.
Tomorrow the laws affecting strikes,
both sit-down and stand-up, will con
tain some consideration of the rights
of the third party to the strike, the
consuming public, the middle class,
the petit bourgeoisie, If you must
have the proletarian name for us.
In that fair day when we have
such a body of unbiased legislation,
government itself will have the right
to initiate investigations. Govern
ment will proceed to grab both parties
of a menacing industrial disturbance
by the scruff of the neck and the
slack of the trousers and bump their
beans together and set them down
hard on it.
And so affiant will ever pray.
(Copyrliht, 1HM7, by the North American
Newspaper Alliance nc.)
-•
‘HORROR PUBLICITY’
ON TRAFFIC IS HIT
“More Policemen” Is Way to Cut
Accidents, Council
Head Says.
Bt th» Associated Press.
NEW YORK. April 2.—In the opin
ion of W. H Cameron, managing di
rector of the National Safety Council,
It's going to take something more than
"horror publicity” to cut the Nation's
traffic toll.
“A flash in the pan” and "not very
effective” were some of the words he
used today in discussing such weapons
as the much-discussed book, "And
Sudden Death,” in driving home the
lesson of safety to the motoring public.
"More policemen on the road” Is
Cameron's answer.
"The average individual shies at the
word regimentation," he said, "but
he has to face it more and more in
traffic controls. The individual must
learn to obey traffic signs, not to jay
walk, and to observe speed limits when
driving. There are going to be more
policemen on the road to enforce speed
laws.”
Cameron sailed on the Bremen to
day to attend the National Safety Con
ference in Amsterdam.
Bricks Hurled by Chinese.
As a protest against the new tax
on bicycles 50 Chinese in Singapore,
Malaya, threw bricks through the
window* of the vehicles registration
office.
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