they may be connected to resist this onslaught. If each one will do his part in an educational campaign, a sentiment can be created that will influence, strengthen and educate many wavering congressmen who are willing to do their duty when they fully understand it. We have a few men in the house and senate who are loyal to their convictions. Those who are more interested in popular clamor and votes than in adherence to principle, are and always will be beyond educational influence. The record conclusively proves that injunctions under the existing laws have been a bulwark for the protection of the rights of the public and industrial liberty. It is a preventive of crimes and disasters and wrongs no one. To do away with its protection and permit what is now unlawful to become lawful, would be a terrible calamity." War's End To be Achieved, but Not by Socialism. In Pearson's Magazine of current issue is the fifth of a series of articles on Socialism, by Allan J. Benson. The title of this special Socialistic essay is "Socialism and War", and the burden of the literary song of the author is that under a Socialistic regime there could be no war, that Socialists refuse to enlist in armies and navies and that Socialists, when elected to legislative bodies, decline to appropriate money for war equipment. One peruses such an article in the hope of perhaps finding some even faintly possible suggestion of how war and its horrors can be avoided, even by Socialists, but no such suggestion is to be found. The writer does not tell how to reform human nature, how to obliterate the dark passions for conflict and battle, so apparent in the healthy boy and his earliest school period, nor even how to eradicate greed in human nature, which the writer, in company with all Socialists, ascribes wholly to people who happen to have a little money. Mr. Benson traces all the wars in which the United States has ever been engaged and undertakes to show how each of them has resulted from the greed of a ruling capitalistic class. In this he fails, although every one will admit that some wars have started by reason of avarice and greed. Until this Socialist and other Socialists can show some better way of avoiding war, which every one wants to avoid, than by the wonderful diplomacy of the to gentler habits of thought and mind, those writers would better spare their ink. Less and less in the hands of the very men against whom the Socialists and their like declaim, war is rendered more infrequent. The very perfection of armament, which the author describes, is a deterrent to war. The day is fast dawning in which war shall be no more, and when it ceases, this will result from the wisdom of the identical men in industrial and political position, against whom the shouters, and discontents, and malcontents are aiming their shafts. This Organization Deserves Support The appeal for membership of the National Building Trades and Employers' Association of the United States, an article concerning which is to be found elsewhere in this number of THE AMERICAN EMPLOYER, deserves a hearty response. The movement is exactly along the line advocated and urged by this magazine. A. F. of L. Would Help Employes of the Government to Strike Significant Affidavits Offering Financial Aid on The senator believes they (railway mail clerks) should have a right to strike. Then, Mr. President, we are meeting squarely the question, Shall these postal employes of the United States have a right to strike against the government? Next the question will be, Shall the naval employes and the military employes of the United States have the right to strike against the government, and next the question will be, Have we a government?-Senator Root in congress, Aug. 13, 1912. The highly important question of whether the congress of the United States shall by law permit railway mail clerks to be in a position to organize a labor union associated with the American Federation of Labor was debated in the United States senate on Aug. 13 in connection with the postal appropriation bill. To place them in such a position would be, it is declared, to make a strike and a general holding up of the United States mail possible. The affirmative side of the debate was led by Senator Smith, of South Carolina, who took the position that any American citizen has a right to belong to any organization and that if an organization was so bad that a government employe could not belong to it, the United States government ought to put such an organization out of commission. Some of the argument was very specious, as for instance, when one senator said that the American Federation of Labor could not call a strike, the inference being that there was no danger of ever striking if only an organization became affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Mixed with the discussion was the question whether existing rules of the post office department forbidding em ployes of the department from voicing grievances direct to congress or to congressmen was not violation of their right under the constitution. The position of the American Federation of Labor was made clear by the introduction on the part of Senator Bourne, of Oregon, of two affidavits which are self-explanatory. State of Massachusetts, County of Suffolk, ss: I, A. C. Walton, being duly sworn, do hereby depose and say that since last December it has been a matter of general conversation among the clerks of the First Division Railway Mail Service that the benefits to be derived by the Railway Mail Clerks' Association, should they unite with the American Federation of Labor, would be that in case the clerks desired to strike against the government they would have the moral support of the federation, and that the federation would levy an assessment of 10 cents upon every member of federated labor to support the striking clerks. These have been the only inducements that I have heard discussed among all the clerks with whom I have had a conversation about this matter. My position as president of the association has naturally brought me in contact with a large number of clerks, and there has been no other question in the minds of any, as far as I know, but what the above were the inducements given out for affiliation. A C. Walton, Railway Postal Clerk. Subscribed and sworn to at Boston, Mass., this 4th day of May, A. D. 1911. Lawrence Letherman. State of Massachusetts, County of Suffolk, ss: I, H. F. Tebbetts, being duly sworn, do hereby depose and say that on the 22d day of last March, at a called meeting between members of the Railway Mail Association of the first division and Frank H. McCarthy, organizer of the American Federation of Labor, in their hall at 987 Washington street, Boston, Mass., the said Frank H. McCarthy stated that if the First Division Railway Mail Association became a part of the American Federation of Labor, the latter body. would not at any time order the Railway Mail Association to strike, but should the Railway Mail Association 'desire to strike, they would receive the moral support of the American Federation of Labor, and that the American Federation of Labor would assess every member of federated labor in the United States 10 cents each, the amount collected to be turned over to the Railway Mail Association to aid them in their strike. He stated, also, that in comparison with the American Federation of Labor the Railway Mail Association was very small, and, consequently, their political influence was small in proportion, and in view of an executive order prohibiting political activity on the part of the Railway Mail Association they (the Railway Mail Association) were prevented from working in their own interests, either with congress or its individual members, but should they affiliate with the American Federation of Labor, with its 2,000,000 members and its vast political machine, measures could be put through congress in which the Railway Mail Association were vitally interested. H. F. Tebbetts. Subscribed and sworn to at Boston, Mass., this 4th day of May, A. D. 1911. C. E. Jennings, Post Office Inspector. The clause in the bill under discussion as it came over from the house of representatives and which the senate committee recommended striking out as embodying danger, was as follows: Provided, however, that membership in any society, association, club, or other form of organization of postal employes having for its objects, among other things, improvements in the condition of labor of its members, including hours of labor and compensation therefor and leave of absence, by any person or groups of persons in said postal service, or the presenting by any such person or groups of persons of any grievance or grievances to the congress or any member thereof shall not constitute or be cause for reduction in rank or compensation or removal of such person or groups of persons from said service. The senate agreed to an amendment by Senator Reed, reading as follows: Provided, however, that membership in any society, association, club, or other form of organization of postal employes not affiliated with any outside organization imposing an obligation or duty upon them to engage in any strike, or proposing to assist them in any strike against the United States, etc. Both the postmaster general and the A. F. of L. officials express themselves as satisfied. Among the pertinent things said during the debate were the following: Senator Root.-Mr. President, it seems to me that the action of the senate upon the proposed amendment will in effect be a declaration either that persons employed in the public service of the United States have authority to strike against the government, or that they shall not have that authority. I can give no other construction to the amendment which is proposed to the bill as it came from the house as compared with the amendment now proposed by the chairman of the senate committee. The senator from South Carolina, I think, is mistaken in the idea that to forbid postal employes to become members of any general association which involves in its rules and order of discipline or obligation to respond to the conclusions of the whole body by striking is equivalent to a demnation of such an organization. It may well be that an association formed for the purpose of purging and bringing about improvement in the conditions of laboring men in their relations of contracts with other citizens, natural or corporate persons, may be praiseworthy, may be entitled to commendation, and at the same time we cannot permit the same rules, the same discipline, the same obligations. to be applied to the bringing of coercion upon the government of the United States. Senator Smith, of South Carolina. -Then the senator proposes by his line of argument that the government shall recognize another government within this government, and in order to avoid a conflict with that government that it shall prohibit its employes by law from membership in that other government. Do we not go upon the assumption that all government employes have the same relation to the government regardless of what society or organization they are. affiliated with, and whenever and wherever they shall be inefficient we deal with them as government against a citizen. Therefore, if a strike should come we would we would just remove the strikers from their places, if necessary, and move along, as the government is the supreme authority. a Senator Root.-Mr. President, this proposed legislation recognizes the existing facts. I propose simply that we should not close our eyes to what the facts are and to the real meaning of the legislation. The fact is that there are great and powerful organizations among the wage earners of the country exerting discipline upon their members. The fact is that we cannot permit that same discipline to be turned against the public service of the United States. Why, sir, here will be the greatest of all labor organizations, the people of the United States and we should not permit men who assume a public duty toward all the people, when they accept employment under the statutes that we enact, to assume an obligation that imposes upon them the duty to turn against their country the forces of coercion. They are at liberty when in private employment to turn against their contracting employ ers. Senator Crawford.-This permission to join other labor organizations, if we adopt it, has no exceptions to it. They might become members of the American Federation of Labor, or they might become members of the Industrial Workers of the World, or they might become members of the Structural Iron Association. They might come under the influence which does exist in some quarters and in some organizations that these contests are nothing more nor less than war. They openly state that it is war and that the taking of human life in it is justified because it is war; that the blowing up of bridges, the destruction of great buildings, the blowing of human lives into human atoms, is justified because it is war. Now, are we to have no discipline? In great organizations of the government, in operative forces like the Railway Mail Service, are we to have no discipline? If men in these organizations who may have good records as far as the performance of their particular duties is concerned are nevertheless affiliated with influences outside that may have the effect of arousing a spirit of mischief, making a rebellion all along the line, is the head of the department to have no power of discipline? Does the senator (Smith, of South Carolina) want to break down and put into chaos everything like discipline in these forces? It seems to me, if the senator please, we come right down to the clean-cut issue under the amendment offered as to whether or not the senator wants to be frank and come out and say that he favors giving these men the right to join any forces and make any alliances and participate in meetings sympathetic or otherwise. We might as well face the real issue in the controversy. I have no hesitation in saying that I shall refuse by any vote of mine to put the government into such a position as that. Senator Massey. In this connection I desire to say, Mr. President, that, so far as labor unions are concerned, people have a right to organize in unions, to unite in unions; but no organization has a right to carry into its organization or into its obligations anything that would cripple the administration of the government in any of the lines provided for by the constitution, either in a navy yard, in the navy department, in the post office department, or in any of the other departments of the government; and whenever this congress recognizes the right by legislation, directly or indirectly, of an individual or a collection of individuals, by concerted action, to interfere with or to disturb the administration of governmental affairs such as are directly provided for by the constitution and must exist if we are to have government at all, they have recognized the right of revolution, and it means revolution. Senator Cummins.-I agree that to strike-and by a strike I mean the concerted cessation of work by employes in order to accomplish a purpose which they have in view-is inadmissible so far as the government is concerned. I agree that an organization composed of the 240,000 civil service employes of the United States which would contain as a part of its articles of association or faith or creed that all these employes might be called upon to quit the service of the United States if full justice in a particular instance was not granted to one of them or to some of them would be little less than treason against the people of the country. At an earlier discussion of the same clause in the postal appropriation bill, Aug. 10, Senator Nelson said: I think senators will realize, on reflection, what a calamity it would be to the postal service if organiza tions of postal employes affiliated with. some radical outside labor organization should go on a strike and "hold up" the post office department. There is no use mincing these matters; we might as well talk plainly. I am in favor of the railway postal employes, many of whom are my friends and acquaintances, being allowed, without restriction, to appeal to congress collectively or to the members of congress individually or to the officials of the department or to the chief executive in any form or manner they like, and to form organizations such as they now have within the lines of the service; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there are outside agitators who are anxious to draw the postal employes into organizations something like the Federation of Labor, and we ought to protect them from any such calamity as that, a calamity both to them and to the postal service. The Boot and Shoe Recorder, Aug. 21, says: A bill has been introduced in congress to make Gompers principal dictator as to whether postal officers, mail carriers, or any other public servants shall continue in that relation or become masters instead of servants. No doubt true progressiveness would enlarge his powers to include dictation as to whether the army and navy should fight or surrender! Watch the labor laws; some of the most damnable and dangerous demagogues in all American history are busily bidding for "the labor vote", with promises, the fulfillment of which would cruelly oppress labor, in the end. It is power and wealth the demagogue is after; he seeks them dishonestly; and when did labor ever get other than oppression from such a combination as dishonestly obtained. and used wealth and power? When did any part of the whole community fail to suffer from such a combination? Watch the voting, and watch the electioneering and the law-making. There have been few periods when the American temperament was in more of an impatient ferment, or more susceptible to the wiles of demagogues. |