'of
Published By the Silver Bow Trades and Labor Council —Weekly —In the Interests of Ortgetrtized Labor
Montana Labor News
The American standard of
living' must be maintained
in order that American in
stitution" may not be sub
ject to ft,- of discontent.
:_fS*
There can he no prosperity
without justly high wages.
Earnings of working people
are the basis and index of
progress in any community.
OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE MONTANA STATE FEDERATION OF LABOR
y.
Vol. VIII.
BUTTE, MONTANA, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1932.
No. 37
CONGRESS MAY PROBE
POSTAL TELEGRAPH CO.
Discriminatory Ruling Against Weekly Newspapers On
Press Wire Rates Sure to Arouse Resentment— Ekern,
Noted Wisconsin Lawyer, Studies Issue Raised—Editors
Should Act in Self-Defense, Say Rail Pension Associa
tion Heads.
By JOSEPH A. WISE.
CHICAG 0.—Herman L. Ekern,
general counsel of the Railroad Em
ployes' National Pension Association,
has under advisement the proper
course to pursue in reference to the
recent ruling by the heads of the
Postal Telegraph Company that press
rates arc meant fen- daily newspapers
only.
Mr. Ekern, a former attorney gen
eral of Wisconsin, has but recently
returned from a business trip to
Texas and has not yet had time to
thoroughly go into the matter.
Wire Story Starts Row.
The objectionable ruling came as
an aftermath of the sending of a
200-word wire news story to 240
weekly and eight daily newspapers
at the end of the second day of the
convention of the Railroad Employes'
National Pension Association, held at
the Congress hotel, Chicago, from
Oct. 10 to 13, inclusive. The story
was accepted and sent at the night
press rate, which is one-sixth of
the day commercial rate. The na
tional officers of the association
were notified of the ruling a week
later.
W. W. Royster and E. J. Elling
son, national chairman and national
secretary-treasurer, respectively, of
the Railroad Employes' National Pen
sion Association, are of the opinion
that the matter is of first concern
to the weekly newspaper editors
themselves, and that the editors
should initiate efforts through their
various editorial associations to
override the ruling. All weekly news
paper editors will be forever barred
from sending or receiving press dis
PENNSYLVANIA'S HUNGRY JOBLESS
GET ANOTHER DOLE
WASHINGTON—(F.P.)—An addi
tional $5,462,266 of emergency relief
funds was allotted to Pennsylvania,
for use in 63 counties during No
vember, by a reluctant decision of
the Reconstruction Finance Corpora
tion on Nov. 4. On that day grants
were made to New Hampshire, In
diana, and Washington as well. It
happened that in all these four states
the Hoover administration and its
Republican senators — Davis, Moses,
Watson and Jones—were in danger
ous political situation, and that this
was the last day on which a grant
of relief funds would be effective,
in softening the voters' resentment
at the G. O. P. policy of "let 'em
starve."
In a statement on the Pennsylvania
allotment, which supplements earli
er grants amounting to $5,842,183,
the R. F. C. said: "The need for
further action by the state and po
litical subdivisions at the earliest
possible moment is apparent when it
is realized that the supporting in
formation supplied by the Governor
of Pennsylvania, and which forms
the basis of the application for fed
eral funds for November, shows that
approximately one-sixth of all the
families in the state (not including
those receiving only Red Cross flour)
are in need of relief and that federal
funds are necessary to supplement
local and state funds in 63 of the 67
counties of the state. The importance
of early action is also emphasized
by the statement made by the Gov
ernor, Oct. 26, to the effect that
any action of the legislature meet
ing in January would not become ef
fective in providing relief before
April 1."
Governor Pinchot estimated that
the November relief needs in these
63 counties would be $9,348,800. Of
this total, 28 per cent could be raised
inside the state, the remaining 72
per cent had to come from federal
funds.
The fact that President Hoover was
roundly booed when he was intro
duced to a Philadelphia crowd by
Boss Vare, who blocked Pinchot's
hunger relief program in the legis
lature, is claimed to have had no
influence on the decision to feed the
hungry unemployed before election
day. The R. F. C. voted the money
on the morning after Hoover had
been thunderously booed by 6,000
v
patches at press rates if the ruling
is pemitted to stand.
Can't Stop Publication.
Having established a publicity de
partment for the purpose of supply
ing newspapers published in railroad
terminal centers with news stories in
reference to the latest developments
and progress made in promoting the
passage of the Hatfield-Keller in
dustrial retirement pension bill, now
pending in Congress, it was and is
the purpose of association officers to
transmit these stories quickly by
wire when the exigencies of the sit
uation so demand. The ruling of the
Postal Telegraph Company will not
defeat that purpose, although the
cost will be much greater.
United States mails, of course, will
continue to be used for the sending
of the bulk of the stories.
Solons May Intervene.
W. W. Royster, national chairman
of the Railroad Employes' National
Pension Association, will be sta
tioned in Washington during the
short session of Congress, which
convenes in December. Mr. Royster
will endeavor at that time to interest
congressional leaders and members
of the Interstate Commerce Com
mission in the discriminatory ruling
of the Postal Telegraph Company, if
the latter has not backed down from
its unfair position meanwhile.
The possibility of a congressional
investigation is being considered. The
Hatfield-Keller bill has many ardent
supporters in both the Senate and
the House who certainly would be
inspired to strongly resent any un
warranted interference with the
progress of the measure.
rin
war veterans in a Philadelphia meet
ing at which Gen. Smedley Butler
and Gen. Pelham Glassford de
nounced the smashing of the bonus
army in Washington by Hoover's
use of gas and bayonets.
In the official statement on the
grant of $667,420 to New Hampshire
for relief of destitution was contained
the first news the capital had re
ceived from any official source as to
the suffering which the depression
had brought to the workers in that
state.
"Local political subdivisions of the
state are said to be virtually with
out funds available for relief at this
time, and under the law unable to
provide such funds," the R. F. C. de
clared. "It was certified that no
funds under existing statutes are now
available in the state treasury for
poor relief, and that no such funds
can be made available under exist
ing statutes. The legislature will
meet in January, next."
So granite-faced New Hampshire,
which sends Senator Moses to Wash
ington to sneer at the need of the
unemployed for food, has no law
under which her own state revenues
can be used to feed the starving.
This triumph of the organized em
ployers in the legislature may have
its reaction in the defeat of Moses
and the Republican governor this
year.
♦
John D. Gets Profit On
Low Wages, Maimed
Men
♦
NEW YORK—(F.P.)—John D.
Rockefeller Jr. is getting his fine
big Radio City built at the cost of
the maiming and crippling of men
working for 40 cents an hour, it
was divulged when house wreckers
struck on the job.
"In their efforts to cut prices, em
ployers have done away with safety
devices, and dozens of our men have
been maimed and crippled," Business
Agent Laurance Truchan said.
WlASHINGTOKLHF.P.)—American
farm mortgages, according to De
partment of Agriculture figures,
amount to $9,241,390,000, on which
t.ie annual interest is $564,000,000.
The value of the entire wheat and
cotton crop of the country, at Oct.
16 prices, was only $600,000,000.
The Washington
-Scene
By LAWUKNCE TODD
WASHINGTON—(F.P.)—In every
branch of the federal government
service there was to be observed a
letting-up of political repression,
after President Hoover's speech Oct.
31 in Madison Square Garden. The
great majority who were going to
vote for Roosevelt or Thomas, and
even the scattered few scientists and
scholars who would, if they voted,
cast their ballots for Poster, began
to relax the padlocks upon their
tongues. The worst threat from
the Hoover administration had gone
on the air. People still lived and
worked and planned for tomorrow.
Government buildings still stood on
their foundations. Hoover was only
one week from oblivion, and the
long-terrified public servants could
laugh. Go through the city from
the Bureau of Standards to the Muni
tions building and the Library of
Congress, you could scarcely find a
salaried official in the civil service
who did not look happier at the im
pending relief from the individualism
of Herbert Hoover.
A high official in the State de
partment talked quietly—and in con
fidence—of the prospect for the
United States. He is a Republican,
a former university professor. He
reads a good deal about hunger
marches, here and abroad. He is an
expert on American foreign trade,
He has seen it slip ruinously down,
in the three years of economic col
lapse, while factories, farms, mines,
railroads, steamship lines—every part
(Continued on page four)
SCHOOLS SACRIFICED TO DEPRESSION
FIRST TIME IN U. S.
WASHINGTON—(F.P.)— S c h o o 1
opportunities for American children
are being sacrificed, for the first
time during a depression.
Throughout the history of the
United States, according to a bulle
tin issued Nov. 4 by the National
Education Association from its Wash
ington headquarters, no previous
period of hard times has been per
mitted to interfere with the exten
sion of free education. The past
two years have been the first in
which general economic distress has
been passed along to the crippling
of the schools. This change for the
worse has occurred at the very time
when great increases in enrollment
are taking place—due to the lack of
jobs for the older boys and girls.
"About three out of every four
cities throughout the United States
are attempting to operate on a
smaller school budget this year than
last year," the bulletin states. "Pres
ent estimates are that 1932 school
budgets were about 4 per cent below
1931, and that 1933 will show addi
tional cuts averaging about 8 per
cent. Such retrenchment cannot con
tinue indefinitely if the schools are
to perform their important functions
with reasonable success.
"The curtailment of educational
support which has marked the past
two years stands in sharp contrast
to the policy followed in previous
periods of economic recession. Dur
ing the 1837-43 depression public
school support, both legislative and
financial, increased in most states
outside the slave-holding region. Un
der the leadership of Horace Mann,
school revenues in Massachusetts in
creased 35 per cent in the 7-year
period, and similar gains were reg
istered in other states. During and
following the depression of 1873-78
school expenditures rose about 63
per cent. The panic of '93 and the
business recession which followed it
until 1898 did not bring about ma
terial reductions in expenditures for
public education. Teachers' salaries
rose slightly, school opportunities
were extended, and the increase in
expenditures for schools outran the
increase in property values. Similar
statements might be made for the
depressions of 1907 and 1921.
"The fact remains that the present
depression is the first one in which
school support has been generally
reduced. This fact constitutes a
challenge to educationa' leadership
which cannot be ignored.
"The proportion of municipal ex
penditures devoted to education is
lower now than at any time since
1922."
In its early years, the American
labor movement made the extension
of the free public school system one
of its first demands. Jeffersonian
Democracy has always asserted spe
cial guardianship over the free school
system. Next to the obligation to
PLANS NEW
EMPLOYMENT
I.asco Brake Products Corporation
Expansion Program Will Assist
Prosperity Return.
♦
Western business recovery was
given additional impetus today by the
expansion announcement of Lasco
Brake Products Corporation, Ltd., of
Oakland, manufacturers of Lasco
brake lining. The outstanding qual
ity of this western-made lining is in
dicated by its use on the racing cars
of such record drivers as Leon Du- I
ray, Ernie Tripplett, "Howdy" Wil- i
cox, "Shorty" Cantlon, William Claus,
Ralph Hepburn and Chester Gardner;
and its use as standard equipment
on racing cars made by Harry A.
Miller, leading racing ear manufac
turer.
According to P. J. Laher, presi
dent, the company's expansion pro
gram calls for immediate plant en
largement, extra machinery and
equipment, additional men both in
the shop and on the road, and an in
tensive advertising and merchandis
ing campaign throughout the entire
country. Through the inauguration
of this program it is planned to make
this enterprise, built and developed
by western men through the support
of western patronage, into one of
the outstanding companies of its
kind in all America, and the name
Lasco the dominant name in the
entire brake lining field.
see that the people shall not die of
starvation, the government of the
United States has always been as
sumed to hold itself responsible for
providing school opportunities for
its coming citizens. The fact that
the golden age of mass production
in industry and of manipulation of
the government by huge corporations
has been followed by a withdrawal
of financial support from the free
public schools—a course adopted by
the MacDonald Tory government in
England—is one of the most sig
nificant developments of the Hoover
era, in the opinion of professional
educators.
RAIL LABOR RE
SENTS ATTACK
ON WAGES
♦
WASHINGTON— (F. P.) — Senator
Peter Norbeek of South Dakota, who
voted to confirm Judge Parker, has
the rail labor organizations fighting
hard against his re-election. A
front-page article in "Labor," the
rail labor political organ, dated Nov.
7, says that Norbeek is "up to his
old tricks," telling rural audiences
that the farmers' troubles arise from
high wages paid to railway workers.
"Time and time again," it says,
"he has given utterance to the same
viciously false propaganda on the
floor of the Senate. He has ignored
the reports of half a dozen official
bodies which have investigated rail
road wages, and which in every in
stance have reported that railroad
workers were underpaid, not over
paid."
Rail labor is supporting U. S. G.
Cherry, the Democratic candidate.
♦
A. F. OF L MAIN
PROBLEM IS DIS
TRIBUTION
WASHINGTON— (F. P.)—"Today's
problem is distribution," says the A.
F. of L. Monthly Survey of Busi
ness, published Nov. 6. "Industry
is paralyzed because we have not
succeeded in distributing what we
produce. The trouble has been in
the distribution of income at its
source."
Of the wage problem it says:
"Our basic wage rates must be raised
—work hours must be shortened; at
present there is less than 30 hours'
work a week for each wage and
salaried worker if all are employed.
As hours are reduced, wage rates
must be increased to maintain buy
ing power. . . . Since 1929, workers'
income has fallen 23 per cent below
the 1922 level, while dividends are
still 32 per cent above it."
SAMUEL GOMPERS 5-CENT CIGAR
MAKES FOR NEW JOBS
The Cigarmakers' International Union, which organiza
tion gave to the world the Union Label as it is used today
by all labor unions, has now given us a new product, the
outgrowth of an idea which, it is predicted, will have a
great bearing upon the course and policies of organized
labor in the future of that great movement. This product
is the Samuel Gompers 5-cent cigar—a cigar made, fi
nanced and promulgated by the Cigarmakers' Inti. Union.
VAST CHANGES
INVOLVED IN
MILITIA PLAN
WASHINGTON — (F. P.) — Confi
dent that Hitlerism in Germany is
dying out, the French government
has at last made terms with the
Von Papen dictatorship in Berlin,
under strong pressure from Wash
ington and Wall Street, and has
agreed to begin demolishing the
Versailles Treaty. Premier Eduard
Herriot has published his arms-re
duction proposal, and the French
Chamber of Deputies has given him
an overwhelming vote of confidence.
The French parliament knows why
Herriot has proposed to put Germany
and all the rest of the European
continent on a conscript-militia basis
of self-defense. He makes this offer
because the French people want to
stop paying good money to the
United States on their war debts.
He knows, and the French know,
that only after a big reduction in
armament expense is agreed upon
in Europe will the Washington gov
ernment consent to a scaling-down
or final cancellation of these debts.
Between maintaining the Versailles
Treaty against Germany and freeing
herself from war debt, France has
turned away from the Treaty and
reached out her hand for forgiveness
of payments.
Every economist knows that the
existence of these war (Lbts has
been one of the prime factors in deep
ening the economic depression and
paralyzing industry around the world
in the past three years. American
national wealth would have been far
greater today if it had been decided
three years ago to wipe the debt
slate clean. European politics is
powerfully swayed by the debt bur
den. Neither Heirtot nor any other
politician can remain in power in
France unless he can secure a solu
tion—unless he can get the United
States to reduce or cancel the pay
ments due. That was the bait which
Norman Davis, American special en
voy, held out to Prance in recent
weeks, with the warning that the
American Congress would never
agree to any reduction of the pay
ments unless French armaments were
sharply reduced.
Herriot drafted his plan. It called
for the abolition of standing pro
fessional armies in continental Eu
ropean countries and the creation of
a conscript militia, whose size in
each country would depend upon its
population and certain other general
factors. The powers having colonics
could keep standing armies in those
colonies. There would be drastic re
duction of all other elements of the
war machine, to satisfy in part the
Hoover proposal of a cut of one
third in all armaments.
Davis was consulted and he re
ported to Washington that the French
were beginning to see reason. For
the sake of money saved they were
willing to remove their standing
army from Europe and to let Ger
many have a militia comparable in
size to the militia that would be
maintained in France. Better still,
Foreign Minister Benes of Czecho
slovakia was one of the authors of
the Herriot plan, and the French
satellite states in the Balkans would
fall into line. Poland would resist,
but Poland could not stand alone.
Germany's dictatorship of junkers
was delighted. Here was the answer
to Hitler's Brown Shirts, the Nation
alist Steel Helmets, the Social Demo
cratic Reichbanner force and the
Communist Red Front Fighters. All
of these armed forces of the politi
cal parties could be dissolved and
suppressed as soon as a national con
script militia could be armed. More
important for the Von Papen gov
ernment, the Herriot plan removed
the main political stock-in-trade of
Hitler and the Nationalists—the cry
that the French were oppressing the
(Continued on page tour)
Named after the greatest figure
in the labor movement, this cigar
lives up to that name in being made
of the finest of tobaccos obtainable,
and made strictly by hand, by union
labor.
At the convention of the Cigar
makers International Union held in
Buffalo in 1929, the union was con
fronted with an unprecedented con
dition of unemployment caused by
the trend of the times and the in
troduction of machinery.
After much discussion of this con
dition in all its phases by the dele
gates present, a proposition was pre
sented as a result of which a com
mittee of the union investigated the
possibility of se.uring and furnish
ing to union cigar manufacturers a
superior quality of tobacco and by
handling it themselves eliminating
middlemen and thereby decreasing the
cost of such superior tobaccos to these
union manufacturers. From this ef
fort the which has
grew re
sulted in the production by the Cigar
makers Co-operative Association, an
organization financed and sponsored
by the Cigarmakers International
Union, of the Samuel Gompers 6-eent
cigar.
By dealing directly with the grow
ers of the tobaccos which they de
sired to incorporate in their product,
this association was enabled to ob
tain not only tobacco enough for
their purpose from the 1932 crop,
but by use of leases and agreements
to assure the same quality for a
period of from ten to twenty years.
There growers are all members of
the Cigarmakers Co-operative Asso
ciation by reason of stock purchased
therein, and therefore it is to their
interest as well as to the interest of
every member of the Cigarmakers
Union to see that the association
This is also true of the
prospers.
boxes used for this product. They are
produced 100 per cent by union la
bor, and stock in the association is
also held by this branch of the pro
ducing organization.
Tobacco, boxes, and in fact all
material necessary in the production
of this new product is handled by
the association at a cost to the in
dividual cigar manufacturer of just
the cost of the materials plus 10
per cent, which money is for the
cost of handling, advertising, and
salaries of association employes.
When it is realized that under any
other method of procedure the cost
to the manufacturer is many times
this 10 per cent, and that the qual
ity of tobacco bought under any
other plan will vary widely, it can be
seen that in no other way would it
be possible to produce a cigar of
anywhere near the quality of the
Samuel Gompers at even twice the
price.
An interesting fact in connection
with the manufacture of this cigar
is the way in which the union ob
tained the name—a name dear to
the hearts of all union men. In 1914,
fearing that some corporation might,
by using his name for their product,
be able to "cash in" on the regard
held for him by all who have the
interests of labor at heart, and know
ing that the supreme court of the
United States had rendered a de
cision to the effect that after a man's
death nobody, not even his family
or his associates, have a prior right
to that name, Mr. Gompers had his
name copyrighted, and it is this
copyright that is revived and re
issued, which is being used by the
Cigarmakers International Union for
its product. And it is indeed fitting
that the organization of which Mr.
Gompers was a member and in which
he was a leader for so many years
should use his name for a product
which has such a worthy purpose
and which is of such superior qusl
ity.
This cigar is being manufactured
in Montana by the Union Cigar Fac
tory and is being distributed through
out the state by Louis S. Cohn, state
wide jobbers of cigars and tobaccos.
(('nntiiUKMl on page four)