Montana labor news. [volume], September 08, 1932, Page Page Two, Image 2

About Montana labor news. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 19??-1951

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Montana Labor News
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Her M
SO THIS IS PROSPERITY COMING.
"Unemployment in August was at the highest point
since depression began," says President Green of the
American Federation of Labor. "Our preliminary esti
mate for July based on government figures shows 11,
400,000 persons out of work in the United States, and
trade union figures for August show no improvement. In
July layoffs for the summer dull season added more than
300,000 to the army of unemployed.
"With unemployment already more than double that
of last year, we face a winter of unthinkable suffering.
Between now and next January nearly two million per
sons must count on losing their jobs in industry and agri
culture—if layoffs are no more than normal. This will
mean well over 13,000,000 out of work next winter. Jobs
must be created by the million if we are to avoid an un
paralleled catastrophe. Even a substantial improvement
in industry could not do more than scratch the surface
of this problem.
"Taking our union unemployment reports as an indi
cator of business, the fact that unemployment stopped in
creasing in August is encouraging. Up to August over
250,000 pei-sons a month had been joining the jobless
The check in this rise shows a distinct improve
army.
ment over each of the two previous depression summers,
when unemployment increased in August, but it does not
show any more jobs created. Normally industry begins
in August to prepare for the fall busy season, and work
ers are taken back to their jobs. This year jobs have not
increased. Weighted figures from trade unions show
the following percentage of membership unemployed
in the last four months: May, 22.8; June, 23.6; July,
25.4; first part of August (preliminary), 25.4.
"Care must be taken not to misinterpret these figures.
They do not show any relief from the unemployment
disaster that has overtaken us. They only show that for
one month it has stopped getting worse. Our present
unemployment problem, and that we must face for next
winter, is beyond anything we have yet known. We
can only meet it by taking immediate action to shorten
work hours, create jobs and get men back to work.
"Our estimates of the total number out of work in the
United States, based on government figures are: Janu
ary, 10,304,000; February, 10,533,000; March,. 10,477,
000; April, 10,496,000; May, 10,818,000; June, 11,023,
000; July, 11,418,000 (preliminary).
NO VOTES FOR THE JOBLESS.
Something is happening in Lewiston, Maine, which
should rouse indignant protest in every part of the
United States. The board of registration is striking
from the voting lists names of all persons who have re
ceived municipal relief, together with their wives and de
pendent parents. About 1,000 persons in that one town
will be disfranchised if the scheme goes through.
The vicious, venomous injustice of such a trick needs
little comment. The scheme is as stupid as it is wicked.
In all modern history, the ballot has proved the best
safeguard against revolution. If men have a chance to
vote in a new regime, they will seldom resort to force to
overthrow the old one. But if men are disfranchised for
being out of jobs when there are no jobs to be had, if a
worker loses his ballot when he needs it most and has
nothing else on which to rely for help—what then?
The board of registration in Lewiston is making Com
munists faster than a hundred missionaries from Moscow.
If the trick is put over in Maine, it will be tried elsewhere.
A hasty survey indicates that there are at least ten states
in which the old pauper laws make it possible to disfran
chise the unemployed. Think of the most important elec
tion in a dozen years being influenced by such tactics!
The Lewiston vote slashing is being done at the order
of Edward Parent, a Republican politician, who seems
to control the party's machinery in that section. Because
of this partisan tie-up, President Hoover has been asked
to repudiate such work. It is to be hoped that the re
sponse from the White House will be prompt and de
cisive.
DEFICITS AND MR. MELLON'S REFUNDS.
On March 31 of this year, the U. S. Treasury had a de
ficit of $2,788,000,000. Uncle Sam was that much "in
the red.
On the same day, official figures showed that since
Andrew W. Mellon took office in 1921 the U. S. Treas
ury had refunded, that is, paid back, internal revenue
taxes to the amount of $3,989,936,175.
Practically all these refunds were of income, inheri
tance and corporation taxes, and the vast majority of the
dollars paid back went to the wealthy.
Some refunds there must be in any fair taxing system.
■ •
BUY ANY CAR BUT A FORD
In the fiscal year of 1921—ending June 30 of that year
—the Treasury refunded $28,656,357.95. Mr. Mellon
was in office for one-third of that period; but it is not
likely that he made a serious change in the policies of his
department until the new fiscal year began.
But in the fiscal year of 1922, with Mr. Mellon in full
charge, refunds jumped to $182,372,000—using round
numbers. In 1923 they were $430,577,000. In 1926
they were $513,358,000,000. That is the largest amount
refunded; but in the first three-quarters of the fiscal
year of 1932, the nine months ending March 31, Uncle
Sam paid back $256,294,000. The word "refund" is
used to cover all kinds of repayment.
Perhaps a different comparison will be fairer. In the
fiscal year of 1921, refunds were 0.62 per cent of internal
revenue collections. The next year—the first full year
under Mellon—they were nine times as much, 5.7 per
cent of collections. In 1926, refunds were 18 per cent
of collections; and for the nine months ending March
31, 1932, refunds were a little over 20 per cent of col
lections.
If refunds had been held down to $100,000,000 a year
after Mr. Mellon took office—which is almost four times
the largest amount refunded in any year before he took
office—the Treasury would have saved enough to cover
the present deficit, with $126,000,000 to spare.
Senator Couzens of Michigan, one of the keenest
business men in the Senate, has repeatedly denounced the
Mellon regime. The figures quoted above show that his
criticisms were not without ample justification.
JOBLESS BOYS TRAMP HIGHWAYS.
Growing hordes of jobless boys are tramping the high
ways and riding freight trains throughout the United
States in search of work, according to a study by the
Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor.
The study covers boys under 21 years of age. Many
of them have attended college or high school. Local em
ployers refuse to give them jobs. Local authorities do
not institute public works to employ them. In many
instances support from the family provided by relief
agencies is wholly inadequate to feed all the children.
So the older boys take to the field in search of work.
The study points out that most of the communities
through which the boys pass are no longer able to meet
the needs of their own unemployed properly and so al
low the transients to remain but 24 hours. ' "Move on!
Move on!" cry the authorities in every town.
Dr. A. W. McMillen, associate professor in the grad
uate school of social service administration at the Uni
versity of Chicago, who made the investigation on which
the Children's Bureau based its study, concentrated his
efforts in the Southwest from March to June. He found
the boys had swarmed to that region to escape cold
ther and to look for seasonal work in the cotton fields,
lettuce gardens and cantaloupe patches.
He found them hitch-hiking and riding freight cars,
cooking their crude meals in the "jungles" about railroad
yards, sleeping on jail floors, and then moving on because
municipal authorities refused to help them.
"Along the route of the Southern Pacific Railroad,
Professor McMillen said, "many small towns in Texas,
New Mexico and Arizona reported the passing of about
200 men and boys daily during the winter and spring.
This railroad from September to April recorded almost
417,000 trespassers ejected on its 9,130 miles of track.
In the month of May it was estimated that 1,500 tran
sients per day rode the freights through Kansas City and
that from 20 to 25 per cent of these were boys.
"Boys from New England and the north central States
were found in Washington, D. C., and farther South.
During the six months ending in April in the District of
Columbia, for instance, approximately 2,600 boys
known to be transients. In Memphis, Tenn., from Sep
tember to March 3,000 transient boys were on their way."
To remedy the situation Prof. McMillen recommended
that life in their home towns be made more atractive for
the boys by various sorts of community activities in vo
cational education, recreation and gymnastics. To pro
vide for the boys already on the road he urged a national
transient service fund to aid communities who are get
ting "more than their normal share of vagrants" and
labor camps with forestry activities and similar work for
the transient jobless who have no homes.
wea
••
were
THE EDITOR'S SCRATCH-PAD
Hello folks, the editor is back from a little vacation,
where he watched thousands of others walk the streets
wondering what the coming winter would bring. From
the looks of things we can expect very little improvement.
Stocks are going up as well as commodity prices, but
wages are still coming down and more men are being dis
charged. If you want to see prosperity, see the news
reels and read the Post and Standard—or shall we now
say the Post-Standard, or vice-versa.
* *
Banks are still crashing with great rapidity. Within
the past few months scores have closed their doors. The
R. F. C. helps the stockholders but no one cares about the
investor.
* ♦
Former Chairman Dawes resigned from the R. F. C.
as soon as he got 80 million for his Chicago banks. Chi
cago got some money for its city relief but the teachers
and others got none of the government loan. It went to
the salaries of appointed politicians.
* * *
Such is life. It will be interesting to see how long the
American citizen will put up with such conditions. We
must say that he has learned the ait of starving grace
fully, like a true gentleman.
* * *
The poor dumbbell of a German and Englishman only
draws unemployment insurance while the intelligent
American stands in the bread line and watches the Amer
ican treasury be divided between railroads and banks.
What a triumph for American Education.
* * *
And speaking of Education. The editor has yet to
find a superintendent of schools that took a salary cut.
We had better look into this, for we think they are put
ting it over on the teachei-s and have formed a union of
their own. In one city visited they put the teachers on
half time, cut their salaries 40 per cent, did not cut the
superintendent's salary and in addition gave him two
new assistants to handle the increased work of half-time
schools. What a system. This wasn't a union town, so
the teachers of Butte in saying their prayers should give
thanks for the unions of Butte and be thankful they
aren't in other cities.
* * ♦
After they have said their prayers they had better or
ganize a union of their own and bar all superintendents
and other officials.
* ♦ ♦
The editor found teachers in many mid-western cities
organizing unions in order to protect what little they
have left.
* * *
And say, don't the curtains in the postoffice building
look nice and homey? We hear that they like the Judge's
rug, too.
* * *
1 he Silver Bow County Taxpayers' League should i
vestigate this. If contractors can live there why should
tax money be paid to rent space for offices now occupied
by the various departments?
* * *
We hear that the League is prospering now that they
have "taken in" members from the "Chance Choints" at
$200 per membership. What a racket, and I still edit
a Labor paper.
m
IT'S A GREAT SYSTEM!
(By JOHN PAINE, Federated Press.)
"I can
;e the people of our west
ern states, who are producers, re
duced to the condition of serfs who
pay interest on public and private
debts to the money sharks of Wall
Street, New York, and Threadneedle
Street, London."—from a speech by
Gen. John A.
Logan, republican
senator from Illinois, in the senate,
Jan. 19, 1874.
That old guy was some predicter!
A firm with good collatex-al may
borrow from the Reconstruction Fi
nance Corporation.
In other words, anybody can bor
row from the government if he proves
he doesn't need the
money.
Our Kavortc Author.
"Power and responsibility cannot
be separated,* politically
ically.
of our taxes we shall find that we
have delegated the control of
government."—Calvin Coolidge.
or econom
If we delegate the paying
our
Uh-huh.
The control of govern
ment has been delegated, and
have the taxes.
so
The control to the bunkers; the
taxes to the workers.
I
"The rich get richer.
And the poor have . . . luxes." .
AL FRESCO MEALS IN ORDER.
—headline.
That's no news to thousands of
workers who have been eating thin
cabbage soup cooked alfresco (over
an open fire in God's great outdoors)
in hundreds of Hoovervilles.
"Actually, going around with the
same color fingernails all the time
is positively depressing to
friends."—from a Cutex ad.
your
So-o-o-o
it's
looking at your
friends' fingernails that has caused
all this depression. You looked at
your friends' nails, were depressed,
your friends looked at yours, dis
covered they were black, not pink
or green or purple, and got de
creased. And so on, ad infinitum.
You're so depressed now that you
are chewing what's left of your
nails.
Even the power stations in the
East balked at broadcasting the
hooey Hoover blared in his accept
ance speech.
Seventy-five per cent of the radio
listeners in the Bronx were unable
to hear the speech, poor things,
when a power substation refused to
function.
They didn't miss a thing, take it
from us.
Chemists say gelatine aids the
body in assimilation of other foods.
What other foods ?
Or thin vegetable stew ?
Coffee an' ?
According to the best authority,
"dole" has disappeared
from our beautful language.
the word
The best authority must be wrong
—the dole has APPEARED for a
part of the population. Bankers are
getting theirs.
In spite of the depression, THE
WAGES OP SIN HAVE NOT BEEN
REDUCED, reads a Salvation Army
slogan.
Sticking by the Hoover
ment, what?
agr«
IT'S A GREAT SYSTEM!
The Unemployed
(By Bertha Gerneaux Woods)
Lord, help us who still live in nor
mal ways,
Whose weeks are made of pleasant,
busy days,
To be more swift in sharing as we
can
This boon of work—to give some
downcast man
A broken chair to mend, a lawn to
mow.
Such terrors stalk beside them
they go
From door to door, and find no
opening way,
No hint of promise for the
day.
Such spectres of grim want for
those whose weal
Is in their helpless hands 1 Û Jesus
deal
With them through US. Thy blessed
name we bear.
Oh, make us quiver with them—make
us CARE
As if their grief
ours their need;
Nor once let us repulse them, lest,
indeed,
We fail to recognize thyself, thy
touch,
Or miss the meaning of thine
"Inasmuch."
as
coming
were ours, and
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