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such. I do not believe they intend deliberately to violate the laws of righteousness and trample on the rights of others. Nevertheless, they do these things. The evil is that the members of the unions look upon the men whom they have placed in authority over them as possessing superior wisdom, and where they lead the members blindly follow. This is not new in the history of mankind. It has been enacted and re-enacted again and again through the whole religious and political history of the race. Hence, for this very reason, every effort should be made on the part of thoughtful people to show what is good and what is evil in the labor unions. The evil must be eliminated and the good encouraged.

The people at large, especially those claiming to be thinkers, have a moral responsibility in regard to this matter which it would be suicidal to ignore. Many of the worst enemies of labor and industrial peace are the "soft" men outside of the union ranks, some of whom hold positions of honor and trust, whose lack of clear-cut vision and intelligence, and whose sentimentalism in regard to this matter, lead them in a course of folly to wink at evils that should be uprooted. Theirs is the voice of the siren that lures men to destruction and death.

THE COST OF A HOLE

One of "the rules" prevailing in the Chicago building trades provides that whenever a plumber or steam-fitter needs to cut a hole in a wooden floor or wall he must call a carpenter to do the work.

What does that mean and what does it cost?

It means that a union carpenter must be taken from some other job, many times transferred across the city. The plumber must stand back and watch the carpenter bore the hole, which, in many instances, has cost five and six dollars for one hole.

Only another example of actual closed shop unionism after it once gets control of an industry or city.

(Bulletin, Employers Association of Fort Wayne)

INTER-CHURCH REPORT ON THE STEEL STRIKE Investigation Shows Report Misleading, Unfair and Conspicuously Self-Contradictory.

An entirely new light is thrown on the steel strike of 1919 in a book entitled "An Analysis of the Inter-church World Movement Report on the Steel Strike," written by Marshall Olds and just published by G. P. Putnam's Sons. Mr. Olds is a well-known writer on economic subjects and undertook the investigation entirely of his own accord and at his own expense. The foreword to the book is by Jeremiah W. Jenks, research professor of government and public administration at the New York University and a former associate in the Inter-Church World Movement. Mr. Jenks states that the book "should be read by all who wish to make any use of the Inter-church report, to quote it or to base any judgment upon it; especially should it be read and carefully studied by the leaders in the Inter-Church Movement who have loaned their names to the report, or who were responsible for the investigation."

Mr. Olds' investigation covered a period of some two years, during which time he endeavored to check up the statistics, affidavits and accusations contained in the original report. He describes his own write-up as "the story of how a bunch of Greenwich Village 'pinks' with deep 'red' connections, put a hot one over on a bunch of unsuspecting ministers, and got away with it." The report, according to Mr. Olds, accepted as authentic many statements which were repudiated by their alleged authors before the United States Senate Investigating Committee. He charges that it was written by Heber Blankenhorn, associated with William Z. Foster in "The Federated Press."

A summary of the principal charges contained in the book, all of them supported, according to the author, by considerable evidence, follows:

"First: The Inter-church Report as a whole, and in general as to its separate and detailed conclusions is based on evidence that is plainly insufficient. The 'rock-bottom evidence' of the

whole report is stated by the report itself to consist of '500 affidavits' which are chiefly from 'the mass of low-skilled foreigners.' Irrespective of the value of these 500 affidavits themselves, it is hardly possible under any circumstances that 500 such affidavits could constitute adequate evidence of facts as to the point of view of 500,000 workers and as to the operation of a great basic industry.

"Moreover, in specific and detailed argument throughout the report, the evidence presented is equally inadequate, repeatedly consisting merely of some one or few isolated, dramatic incidents or allegations from which the report immediately generalizes and draws sweeping conclusions.

REPORT CONSPICUOUSLY SELF-CONTRADICTORY

"Second: Chiefly because of its persistence in generalizing from insufficient evidence, the Inter-church Report is repeatedly and conspicuously self-contradictory in regard to major conclusions. For instance:

"It frequently repeats the statement-as one of its main arguments for the need of 'Collective Bargaining'-that the workers as a matter of practice cannot take their grievances any higher than the foreman. Yet in a majority of the evidence which the report itself later presents, consisting of affidavits of low-skilled foreign-workers in regard to specific grievances, these affidavits definitely state that these workers actually did take their grievances 'from the foreman to the superintendent,' or 'to the main office,' or 'to the general superintendent,' or 'to the general manager.'

"The Inter-church Report states, as a major conclusion, that common labor worked (1919) 74 hours a week-over 12 hours a day. It states as another major conclusion that the annual wage of steel common labor for 1919 was ‘under $1,466 a year.' As a matter of simple arithmetic, based on the known and admitted wage rate, if common labor averaged over 12 hours a day, their wages were not 'under $1,466 a year,' but between $1,700 and $1,800 a year, or else common labor worked only 249 days a year, which would entirely contradict the whole Inter-church argument that the industry was 'speeded up in

every direction'-that the workers only got a Sunday off once in 6 months, etc.

FOSTER AS THE LEADER

"The Inter-church Report spends a major part of Chapter II arguing to the conclusion that the steel strike was not 'plotted or led by reds or syndicalists or Bolshevists'—that it did not seek to 'overthrow established leaders and established institutions of organized labor.' Chapter VI, however, is devoted mainly to showing in detail that the whole unionization and strike movement was planned by, and its most important leader was, a man who has himself admitted in writing, both before and since the strike, that he was an ultra-radical working in general, and in the steel strike in particular, toward overthrowing what are at least the expressed present aims of organized labor, and he specifically refers to the steel strike as an example of the degree to which they are being overthrown. Moreover, the authors of the Inter-church Report state plainly in this Chapter VI that they were entirely and in detail familiar with his point of view and his aims; in which chapter it is also stated that circumstances at the time of the steel strike and in general are forcing all organized labor from its present theories of 'craft' unionism to the 'industrial' or radical unionism for which they admit Mr. Foster is working. Moreover, in this same later chapter the Inter-church Report specifically states that the two principal 'psychological factors' which influenced the big majority of the 'unskilled foreigners' in the strike—and it is plainly admitted that in general the unskilled foreigners were the backbone of the strike-were such radical motives as that the workers had got control of the Russian Government; that they had or were about to get control of the British Government; that they expected as a result of the strike that 'Mr. Wilson was going to run the steel mills,' etc.

"On page 95 the report states that the steel companies, in their efforts to force workers to over-exertion, made each wage raise just enough to meet the increased cost of living, yet, in a footnote on page 97 it states that earnings had gone up to 150 per cent. during a period in which it is a matter of official

record that the increased cost of living had gone up only half that much.

AN EX PARTE ARGUMENT

"Third: The Inter-church Report is openly and wholly an ex parte argument. The statement in the beginning of the report that the scope of the inquiry was chiefly among the 'mass of low-skilled foreigners,' and that the statements and affidavits of 500 (such) steel workers constituted the rockbottom of the findings,' and the repeated statements that the Inter-church Report investigators received little support or evidence from the steel companies constitute palpable admissions of the ex parte nature of the whole report. Such admissions, however, are entirely superfluous. The authors of the Interchurch Report had available all the evidence presented in the present analysis. They obviously, however, not only made no effort to seek out evidence except on one side, but they deliberately omitted to consider the most widely known and official facts-even facts which often form an integral part of the evidence the report does use whenever these facts are in any way favorable to the steel companies.

"In its entire discussion of wages, the Inter-church Report attempts to prove the contrary without once mentioning the existence of the official Government figures and other authoritative studies which show plainly and specifically that steel wages are by far the highest in industry, even though some of these figures are found buried away in the appendix of the report itself.

"The whole weight of evidence in the Senate investigations was against the strike, as both Foster and the Inter-church Report tacitly admit by their repeated condemnation of the Senate investigation. The Inter-church Report quotes frequently and voluminously from the Senate investigation. Yet not only does it not quote any Senate evidence whatever that is in the least favorable to the steel companies, but in the unfavorable evidence which it does quote, it carefully expurgates any statements or remarks that are favorable to the companies' side and quotes only that part which is favorable to the workers' side.

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