Hol. XXXV

T

HE license of industrial warfare, with its unpunished and repeated acts of terrorism, of wholesale murders, of coercion and open mockery of law and order, has reached a stage which must be regarded by every straight-thinking American as a severe indictment against the impotency and pusillanimous attitude of public authorities, both Federal and State. On a par with the most inhuman atrocities committed by Germany during the war, and by the Trotzky régime in Russia, the slaughter of defenseless nonunion miners in southern Illinois is a disgraceful affront to our constitutional government which becomes even more abhorrent because of the cowardly failure of local and State officials to mete out punishment. The conscience of the American people, so quick and terrible in its might to resist foreign aggression, must not and cannot fail of a new awakening in order to crush this open rebellion as well as the more insidious invasions that threaten to destroy national guarantees of equal justice, of protection to individual life, liberty and property.

Red-blooded Americanism has come to the parting of the ways with misguided labor, led by bull-necked, brutal and selfseeking leaders, many of whom are of foreign birth and traitors at heart to the land that

tolerates them. A nation which today stands exalted above all others in defense of the ideals of international peace and righteousness may also be relied upon to blaze the way to industrial peace by charting a course for toilers which will assure for them the realization of their honest aspirations. The way out will not be through drastic measures against the mass of deluded workers who are deserving of wholehearted sympathy in striving for the comfort and happiness of their wives and children. The remedy will come through concentration of public wrath and swift retribution for those men whom President Harding had in mind when he said recently at Marion:

"My one outstanding conviction, after sixteen months in the Presidency, is that the greatest traitor to his country is he who appeals to prejudice and inflames passion, when sober judgment and honest speech are so necessary to firmly established tranquility and security."

Flag shouting, Fourth of July orations and phonographic recitation of the Declaration of Independence will get us nowhere. The feelings of outraged citizenship must be translated into action and definite procedure. In time of war we deal summarily with traitors. Why not in time of industrial warfare? Jail is the place for fire-eating

labor leaders who inflame passion and prejudice and the spirit of insurrection. The great majority of wage earners are law abiding and responsive to reason. It is their leaders who conspire in secret, who use them as tools and who openly preach resistance to constitutional authority and assail the highest courts of the land. If labor leaders can openly defy the United States Supreme Court, disobey the findings of legal tribunals and instill the doctrine of hate with impunity, what is to be expected of the herded followers.

We must have co-ordination and invigoration of the Federal, State, county and local instrumentals of law and order. If the murderers in the Illinois coal fields escape punishment it will breed greater contempt for law. If the public conscience continues to slumber we shall have an "invisible government" controlled by ruffians to take the place of that at Washington. The answer is that craven politicians and weaklings who cower before the union labor vote must be swept out of public office and men elected or appointed who will be fearless and one hundred per cent. Americans in performance of their duties.

CONSTRUCTIVE INDUSTRIAL

POLICIES

HE time has come when employers of labor must take a firm stand for the principle enunciated by President Harding in his recent speech. when he said, "A free American has the right to labor without any other's leave; men must be free to live and achieve." Únion labor as today conducted is absolutely hostile to this inalienable right. Men are forced to join unions and pay dues and assessments for which the leaders make no accounting. The laborer must live up to the rules. He cannot advance on merit. His hours are fixed as well as his output. The result is increasing inefficiency, higher costs and decreased production. In short, unionism spells industrial decay. It benefits only the bosses and the walking delegates.

The menace is not only confined to industry and misdirection of labor's proper aims. It strikes deeper, at the very root of our social, political and judicial systems. The war has intensified class bitterness and

set up false standards of living. Despite their hypocritical professions of patriotism. the labor leaders have adroitly played upon passions and prejudices of illiterate minds so that the ranks of labor have become saturated with communistic and socialistic poison. The American Federation of Labor votes against recognition of the Russian Soviet and the revolutionary designs of radical delegates, knowing full well that it would be signing its own death warrant by declaring openly for "direct action." In substance, however, its program might have been written in Moscow with its avowed declaration to "scrap" constitutional safeguards, to render the United States Supreme court and lower courts subservient to political whim and to do away with all Federal laws of injunction and restraint upon the lawlessness of union labor.

National elections are drawing near. Let it be frankly proclaimed through every public channel that there must be a new, constructive statesmanship to guide labor; that the present leaders are traitors to the men they lead as well as to the nation. Let the fact be known that because of the. false doctrines, the hostility and the stupidity of labor leaders in resisting necessary adjustments, this country is prevented from making the best use of its matchless resources of wealth and raw material. Wages and living standards here are far above those of any other country. Even in the face of strikes among coal miners, railroad men and textile workers, the nation is steadily overcoming depression and the after effects of the war. How much greater would be the pace of industrial recovery, of economic readjustment and distribution of prosperity if labor were efficiently guided by wise counsel and economic truth.

It is chiefly because of the obstructions of organized labor and the erroneous impression that the abnormally high wages that prevailed during the war can be continued in time of peace, that this country is actually surfeited with idle capital and credit that should be put to work. With. high cost of production, due to proportion of earnings demanded by labor, we cannot hope to compete in international markets and with the further consequence of restricted consumption at home.