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A. F. OF L. WILL NOT OBEY INJUNCTIONS

Advises Members to Disregard All Injunctions Issued in Labor Disputes

The American Federation of Labor voted in November while in a national convention at Baltimore to disobey any injunction founded on the dictum that labor was property; that when an injunction was issued against a strike, labor should strike regardless of the court's mandate and heedless of consequences.

That vote, itself, was lawlessness. It was pure and undefiled anarchy. Doubtless it was the gravest, most reckless act in American organized labor's history.

Mr. Gompers and his crowd, having espoused the cause of railway brotherhoods that had ravished the dignity of congress and compelled it to cringe in wretched submission, celebrated the political triumph-for political victory alone it wasby flinging contempt at governmental law and challenging the integrity of the United States bench.

The Employer predicted that labor would be branded by some disgrace such as this. It was expected. Governmental servility to organized labor, or any other autocratic group, could not fail to intoxicate the master with the inebriation of vain-glorious power. When congress fawned upon railway brotherhood leaders and passed, by those leaders' command, the Adamson law-the most arbitrary and lop-sided class. legislation in the world's history-it invited the insult deliberately and audaciously given our most cherished institution, the court of justice, by the American Federation of Labor.

The Baltimore resolution is an abomination in the estimation of every decent, patriotic citizen in the United States, union or non-union. It is an infamy, bred originally by the politician who encourgaed by his obsequiousness the belief now obsessing labor leaders that they are omnipotent, higher up than the majesty of the law upon which the safety of this nation is founded.

Union men who love their flag, their country and its fundamental institutions should scorn in a temper the Federation's outrageous call to commit outlawry. The honestly American union man should be aroused to a realization that he is the exploited puppet of men who would command betrayal of country and bring shame, dishonor and scandal upon the honorable name of labor in order that they might glut themselves with power. Can't the intelligent union workman see what others see?

The whole nation, regardless of fraternal or other affiliation, should revolt against that crime which organized labor contemplates at the behest of its author, a man named Furuseth, a name not particularly suggestive of its owner's Americanism. -Oklahoma "Employer"

AMERICA GETS MUCH TRADE IN THE EAST

German and Austrian imports into India being cut off, and the imports from the allied countries having decreased, trade with the United States has almost doubled, according to a Bombay correspondent of the Toronto Globe.

One market in India has been cornered by the United States, and that is for low priced motor cars. The importation of iron and steel from the United States is increasing, and there is a great opportunity for expansion in the sale of other products.

One of the best prospects for iron and steel manufacturers is farming tools, according to an agricultural and trade expert. There would be little call for such big machines as traction plows, but ordinary plows, harrows, reapers and the many other implements of husbandry would find a ready market.

"India is an agricultural country," an investigator here said, “and it may be news to people outside India, but the Indian farmer will buy anything which really will give him better results. Incidentally we have been having good crops for several years, and money is more plentiful now than ever before in the history of this country.

COMMENT

Mr. John D. Hibbard, Commissioner of the National Metal Trades Association, in a recent letter to the members, says: "In not one single instance, where the employer was willing to stand, has the eight-hour day been forced. The eighthour day is not the standard working day in the machine shops of this country, and it will not be for some time to come, at least. The 25% increase in cost, arising from paying the same wage for eight hours as for ten, is but a small portion of the increased cost to the manufacturer, with heavy property, building, machine tools, and other investments; with depreciation, overhead, selling expense, and other fixed charges, which must then be spread on the eight-hour day instead of the ten."

The greatest and most needed improvement in Chicagothe $47,000,000 union passenger and freight terminal-is in the toils of the union business agents. Not a stroke of work has been done on it since last July. Apparently the tie-up will continue indefinitely. So far as the terminal is concerned, there is no complaint-only union men were employed. But the union agents are endeavoring to force the railroads interested to make agreements which will provide for union men only on all work undertaken in Cook County in the future. This the railroads decline to do.

The same union business agents who are charged by the government with blackmail and extortion in connection with previous graft cases, and who are about to be brought to trial, are thought likewise to be responsible for the Terminal hold up, and the District Attorney's office has begun an investigation of the matter. It is said much evidence is already at hand tending to show a conspiracy in restraint of trade and numerous violations of the Interstate Commerce Law by several unions which are attempting to prevent the shipment of materials to the terminal and hinder the work in other ways.

On December 28th, David Caplan, last of the alleged dynamiters to be brought to trial for the destruction of the Los Angeles Times Building in 1910, when twenty men were killed, was sentenced to ten years in San Quentin Penitentiary on a charge of manslaughter. The Court has granted a certificate of probable cause for appeal, which will suspend sentence until the question of appeal is decided.

On Christmas morning, a bomb was found at the residence of Governor William Spry of Utah. It was powerful enough to have blown the house to atoms. The Governor refused to prevent the execution of Joseph Hillstrom, the convicted I. W. W. murderer, and since then I. W. W. members have made many threats against his life.

The attempt made at the recent convention of the Federal Council of Churches at St. Louis in December to commit the thirty denominations represented to a policy of "preferential" unionism was not successful.

The proper attitude of the Church was well expressed by Reverend G. H. Bickley, of Philadelphia, when the question came up before the Methodist General Conference at Saratoga Springs last May. "I am opposed," said Reverend Bickley, "to the Methodist Church entering into class legislation. One of the previous speakers has said that in one group of labor there are 4,000,000 men; in the group of unorganized labor there are 14,000,000 men. Do you propose now, by this, to say that the attitude of the church towards these 18,000,000 of laboring men is that we shall give a preference to 4,000,000 against the 14,000000? I am for men! I am for all men. And I am not for Methodism or the Church of Jesus Christ saying that as a church one group shall have an advantage over another by our action."

KIND WORDS FOR BUSINESS

"Every Week" Believes Greatest Force for Righteousness in United States Today is the Once Maligned Business

I graduated from college when muckraking was in its greatest glory.

The magazines and newspapers and reformers had filled our youthful minds with so much distressing information that we hardly knew whether the world was a safe place for us to step out into or not.

We looked askance on all the fellows in college whose fathers had made money. To be sure, the fathers seemed decent enough old codgers when they visited us at the fraternity house. But we felt that something was dark and bad in their past somewhere.

We wouldn't have been seen walking on the street with John D. Rockefeller for anything.

I remember visiting Washington and looking at the United States Senate. I felt as if I were visiting Sing Sing.

There was So-and-So from Texas: the Oil Trust owned him. There was So-and-So from Wisconsin: the railroads owned him. And so on.

All there through some unholy alliance.

All city governments were corrupt; all laws were passed from evil motives; all business was yoked together in a vast unseen network, formed and fostered to exploit the nation.

A business man was a being without conscience or intelligence, like a slot machine. You gave him a nickel and he gave you a nickel's worth of goods.

If he took your nickel and gave you nothing in return, then he was a successful business man.

Running a magazine was very easy in those days.

All one had to do was to take down a map of the United States and place his finger on any spot-say Owosso, Michigan.

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