The CIO news., December 04, 1944, Image 1

About The CIO news. (Cumberland, Md.) 1942-????

Image provided by: University of Maryland, College Park, MD

                
Western Maryland Edition.
A Response
The Lutheran
• ‘ A -v W v
■ ,j*i o -y
Official Organ of the United Lutheran Church in America
1228-1231 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, Pa.
Nathan R. Melhorn, D.D., Litt.D., LL.D., Editor
Mr. Robert T. Kerim,
12 South Mechanic Street,
Cumberland, Maryland.
Dear Mr. Kerlin:
Your postcard of July 27 reached The Lutheran and copies of the journal to
which you referred, “The Voice of have also been received and their con
tents noted superficially. You will he interested to know that more news original
ing in labor unions and from labor leaders have been coming to the church press
in recent months. 1 think that we who are in editorial positions are impressed
with the efforts of labor to obtain the larger share in the products of their industrv.
In most instances, however, we are not sufficiently near to the actual situa
tions to he able to deal with them adequately. Under such circumstances we pre
fer to print news and avoid partisanship in discussion.
Very truly yours,
Nathan R. Melhorn.
There are several points in and about this letter to which this Editor wishes
to direct attention. The postcard and copies of the Voice of Labor referred to
were sent to the chief denominational paprs of about a dozen churches at the date
mentioned—July 27.
1. This letter is the only acknowledgement.
2. This letter admits that after four months only superficial attention has
been given to the Voice of Labor.
3. Labor unions are sending their literature to church papers in increasing
abundance, proviug labor's desire to instuct the churches on labor affairs.
4. Church papers will not champion the cause of labor because the editors
are not sufficiently informed.
5. More than this can he read between the lines and discerned in the cordial
but cautious tone of this letter.
Draw your own conclusions. Incidentally, note the editors array of titles.
And yet, and yet, and yet! Too remote from the labor movement to sav anvthing
about it! Robert T. Kerlin.
The Why
Labor is militant. It is well for all people
to know this. It is militant, and will continue to be
militant. It is well for all people to know why.
The explanation of the fact is in history; the ex*
planation of the reason is in the contemporary
conflict of economic classes.
To begin to understand the mood of Labor the general public
must read the history of Labor’s long heroic blood-stained strug
gle to achieve its present legal rights and power In our economy.
Read In that history of the laws that Labor had to get annulled.
Read of the employers’ practices—incredibly inhumane —that had
to be exposed to deaf ears and unseeing eyes, and abolished after
many years of attack
Read of the social forces Labor had to oppose—and that, too,
without the weapons those forces had at command—the social
classes that exploited the workers, lived and flourished and en
joyed themselves in parasitic idleness, fattening on the profits
from the excessive, underpaid toil of virtual slaves; social classes
that made and executed the laws, that created public opinion,
that wielded inherited power and took advantage of traditional
privilege.
Read that history, from the beginning of modern history
down to the present hour —down to the strike publicized in the
headlines of this morning’s daily and described as “labor trouble’’
—read that history and you will begin to understand why Labor
is militant.
Two centuries of bitter struggle for decency in working con
ditions, for an income in wages that would enable workers to
do a little more than survive to work, and for a recognition of
themselves as human beings, not machines and not chatties,
have made the workers to be soldiers in an unending warfare
for what all men most prize. (Ask yourself what these things
are). Yes, for the reasons that make workers human beings
Labor is militant.
All thinking people today are deeply concerned about the
peace which should follow this frightful (and inexcusable) war.
Rightly so. They want a peace founded upon justice; a peace
assuring freedom, and decency, and fairness for all nations and
all groups of people; a peace that will last because it is worthy
to last. Millions of people want and demand such a peace for
the nations of the world —all the nations. And no worthier
aspiration and effort has ever appeared in mankind.
*• Commendable as this aspiration and this effort is. there is
another war on, a war that has been on for generations, and
which has. too, its bloody story, about which people have given
and are giving altogether too little thought. It is the war too
abstractly and euphemistically called “the conflict between
Labor and Capital.”
It is, too. a costly war, tremendously costly; costly in
material goods, costly in spiritual goods, costly in blood. Since
the general public is so profoundly indifferent to the human
issues in this war; since the general public, if it takes sides at
all in the conflict, goes with Capital, the battles must be fought
out in the main by the workers themselves, unaided and alone.
That is why Labor is militant.
It is not ancient —this history. Comfort not yourselves,
good friends, with this flattering delusion. It is as contem
porary as the New Deal; as the NLRB; as this global war;
as Weir, Pew, Girdler, Congressman Smith; as the Readers
Digest. It is because Capital in this conflict has all the advan*
tages of tradition, of “respectability,” of the facilities for creat
ing public opinion, on its side, and because Capital is alert,
ingenious, and active In mustering its forces to subdue Labor,
that Labor is militant.
The securing of a just and durable peace in this Labor-
Capital war, a peace founded on humane principles, on justice
and social prudence, might well receive a share of the general
public’! thought. Meanwhile, Labor is militant.
The CIO
NEWS
Hntered hk Second Cl us* Mattel, Post OITIce. Washington. D. C..
Under the Art of Aug. 24. 1912. and Feb. 28. 1923.
Postmaster: Send Form 3578-P Cards to
Western Maryland CIO News. Box 299. Cumberland. Md.
Vol. 7. No. 49 December 4, 1944
Religion and Labor
The CIO has actively undertaken to interest the churches
—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish—in the tvorking class. Early
in October it participated in a three-day session of the First
International Religion-Labor Conference at Pittsburgh, at
which all these churches and the CTO were represented. The
situation and its problems were discussed with the purpose
of bringing the workers into churches that would give them
actual help in their lives and of bringing a practical religion
into shops nnd factories.
The program of this conference indicates that there was
much more than this in its discussions. Practical and timely
economic topics, covering a wide range, were discussed by men
of understanding. The nation was hearing over the radio at that
time oratorical stuff of infinitely less importance. This confer
ence received little public attention.
The CIO followed this face-to-face discussion by a pamphlet
titled “Religion and Labor.” Every citizen of good will should
read this pamphlet and think on its contents. (Price 5 cents,
order of the Voice of Labor.)
Organized labor and the
churches have too many inter
ests in common, too many com
mon objectives, for them to
stand aloof from each other.
Movie
Managers
Join CIO
San Francisco, Dec. 2—The men
who have to listen systematically
to complaints from irate movie pa
trons have formed their own union.
The first union organization of
theater managers and assistants,
is known as the Motion Picture
Managers Guild, afliliated with the
United Office & Professional Work
ers <ClO>.
The local includes managers and
assistants in the Golden State
Theater & Realty Corp. and San
Francisco Theaters Inc. and claims
a majority of employes in both
chains.
“The rest of the theater industry
is organized.” UOPWA Regl. Dir.
William Piehl commented, “and it
is high time for the managers and
assistants to enjoy the benefits of
organization. . . . They too are in
terested in postwar security, salary
Increases and improvement in work
ing conditions.” •