The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 10, 1926, Page 11

a 4 sty Rane Schockbes om campaign .was coming to a successful usion. While the war was still in prog- an order was issued in St; Louis by Major ral Rosecrans forbidding the workers of city from joining unions or attending ings or demonstrations on the grounds of tary necessity.” The following signifi- phrase in this order is worth quoting: 1 putting down this attack upon private s and the military power of the nation ganizations led by bad men, the general dently relies upon the support, etc. a the same year two companies of troops sent into Cold Spring, N. Y., to put down ike of ammunition workers for a raise $1.00 to $1.25 a day to meet the immense increase in the cost of living, martial law aimed and the leaders first imprisoned in Lafayette and later exiled. the years intervening between the end of war and the general strike of ’77 we fre- ty, firid headlines like the following ap- ng in a bourgeois Pennsylvania paper )-72) above a report of a strike for the nour day in the lumber mills of Williams- ‘HE:- LABOR STRIKE—MASS MEETING rl PEOPLE—GREAT EXCITEMENT DAY—FIGHTING WITH MILL GUARDS RIVAL OF TROOPS FROM ABROAD ide of state)—LEADERS ARRESTED IMPRISONED—PROCLAMATION BY OR GEARY.” this case the troops had been sent in af- e strikers had resisted police who had on them while picketing one of the saw- in the town. Among the workers arrest- this strike, it is worth mentioning, as a ent on the “democracy” that the bour- ie is fond of telling .us existed in those old days, some were held on $10,000, and on $20,000 bail, and both their wives and attorneys were refused admittance to the P Tae UGH there was quite a wide recogni- of the necessity of independent work- Bs action on the political field, and some e local labor parties, notably that in vhusetts, achieved a temporary effec- s,.the struggle was mainly on the eco- field, The tendency of certain leaders with bourgeois reform parties, notably reenback party which swallowed up the Labor Party organized by leaders of ational Labor Union (a loose trade un- federation with a membership of about a million) at the beginning of the seven- aided in rallying militant elements among kers to the unions as their chief weap- defense against the capitalist offensive. open control of legislatures and congress big interests, and the constant efforts bribery and intimidation of labor at the also tended to make many workers fairly as to the efficacy of the vote. The Workman (1870) writes in this con- is a pleasant fiction prevalent in this ‘that the workingman is free and in- as a voter, but such, we are sorry , Js a delusion. Laboring men in our of the country are no more free to vote (By a Worker Correspondent.) INTRODUCTION. A short time ago the job holders of the Carpenters’ Union In New York decided to raise the dues, paid by the membership, In order to be able to raise their sal- aries and otherwise increase their incomes. A propo- sition was brought up in the district council that the dues be raised from the present sum of $1.25 per month to $2.00. Progressive delegates of the district council suc- ceeded in getting a motion passed that the question be sent out for a referendum vote. Smelling certain defeat a delegate made a proposi- tion that the dues be increased. to $1.75 per month, and this also to be sent out for a referendum vote. When the. ballots were distributed by the district council to the local unions, to be voted on, they con- tained two propositions: Are you in favor of increas ing .the dues to two dollars per month or, to $1.75 per month, with a square marked yes under each proposi- tion and no place to vote no. It was only possible to vote for $2.00 or $1.75. This trick raised a storm of protest, the member- ship of about 10 locals forced their officials to return the ballots without voting and some locals voted unani- mously to cross the yes from the ballot and write in no, and send their reports in as voting against both propositions. * * ACT ONE. Scene and place: New York District Council of Car- penters. Time: Wednesday, June 23, 1926. GECRETARY KELSO of the district council reading the taily of votes as cast by the lo- cal unions, at.a regular meeting. ‘Those lo- cals that returned the ballots will be counted as not voting.” (Voice: They are impartial.) “Those locals that did not vote in accordance with the instructions on the ballots are void. Total tally for $2.00 a few hundred, for $1.75, 5,257 votes. The proposition for $1.75 is car- ried.” 4 A delegate arises. “Mr. Chairman, this shows how much interest the members take in our union, when only about 5,000 vote out of over 30,000 carpenters on a proposition of raising their own dues. Those reds are crazy for yell- ing rank and file’all the tite, this .ught to be a lesson to them.” Delegate Lihzis of Local No. 2,090: “Mr. Chairman, this vote is a fake. I don’t believe 5,000 voted. How do you expect the mem- bers to vote on a hold up proposition. It’s just like a robber puts up a gun: money or your life, here it is, $2.00 or $1.75.” as they please than they are to work as many hours a day as they see fit. Men, after having earned their pittance of wages by ex- cessive toil, are expected to prostitute their elective franchise to gratify the will of their employers. . we are aware of whole es- tablishments being controlled in that manner view In some cases overseers sit beside the judges of election to see to it that ‘their men’ vote the right ticket, and the failure to do so insures the discharge of the workman on the following day.” It. was the union, then, that was considered the real bulwark of the labor movement, and a large proportion of the strikes and lock- outs of these years. were fought primarily for the right of organization. Repeatedly during these years, particularly among the miners, we read of men—and women—staying out for months in the face of eviction, hunger and troops rather than sign agreements abandon- ing the union. . The unions grew at a great rate in the peri- od between the end of the war and the panic of ’73, some 25 national unions being formed. The largest and most powerful, the Knights of St. Crispin (an organization of*shoe-workers) founded in 1867 had a membership of 50,000 by 1870, and lodges all over the states from Philadelphia to San Francisco, as well as in Toronto, Quebec and other Canadian cities, (THERE were of course a variety of elements in the unions of the period; but though some members looked upon the union merely as an instrument for collective bargaining, and subscribed to the “fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work” philosophy, there was also a large militant element who regarded it as a stage in the class struggle, a means ‘of bringing about that workers’ solidarity that would be indis- pensible for the battles of the future. This militant attitude is excellently summed up in an article appearing in the Workingmen’s New York Carpenters Raise Their Dues A TRAGEDY AND FARCE IN ONE ACT. Delegates at meeting: “Sit him down, he's crazy. Throw him out. He’s one of them reds.” After the excitement is over a dele- gate arises. “Mr. Chairman, my local appealed to General President Hutcheson inquiring whether the ballots were constitutional and he answered certainly, this is fair and legal. This decision should satisfy anybody.” Secretary Kelso reads communication from Local Union No. 353 requesting that the dis- trict council increase the salaries of their offi- cials in the same percentage as the carpen- ters’ wage increase, which would make an in- crease from $100.00 per week to $115.00 per week, Delegates and business agents from floor. “Mr C.hairman,;I concur in the propo- gition.” “Mr. Chairman, make it $125.” “Mr. Chairman, I think it ought to be more than $125.00; let’s increase the per capita to the dis- trict council.” (Voice: Send it out for a refer- endum vote.) Delegate Lihzis arises. Shouts from floor: “Sit him down, throw him out!” Delegate Lih- zis. shouts. “Mr. Chairman that’s a fake vote. I am not going to vote because it’s not legal. The $12.00 wage scale is only on paper. Most of the men are working for less. Your sal- aries are too big anyway.” Shouts drown him. Delegate from Local Union 1164, a local that returned the ballots as a protest: “Mr. Chair- man, I am not going to vote. I think the mo- tion for $125 is better than the one for $115; the officers are entitled to more money, but I won’t vote because it is too near the time when dues are to be raised. All the outsiders will be yelling: ‘As soon as they raised their dues they raised their salaries, they couldn’t even wait a few weeks.’ I say we must lay the mat- ter off for a few weeks, it will be better; I therefore won’t vote.” John Halkett, president of the Building Trades Council, boss over everybody and brains of the whole concern: “This talk about a ref- erendum vote and members kicking is all bunk. We didn’t send out the question of increasing the wages of over 30,000 carpenters for a ref- erendum vote, and we didn’t ask their permis- sion either. Surely we don’t have to doit for a few officers. Everybody will be satisfied.” Getting angry, “and if a few kick, show them some of Hutcheson’s strength.” Secretary takes vote and announces that the motion for $115 was carried unanimously with two delegates refusing to vote. CURTAIN. Advocate of March, 1873, when the panic of that year was already flinging out thousands of workers to starve in the streets, and the rumb- ling of ’77, the year of the first great battle between capital and labor in the United States were already heard in the land: ° The article is an answer to one by a eertain Frank Leslie, a labor reformer, who, attacking the tyranny and rapacity of capital, had plead- ed with it to “study the labor problem,” ‘‘ex- hibit sympathy for labor,” and grant it “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.” “Ask history,” Says the writer, “to point out one single instance where kings, aristocracies and dominant classes haye ever voluntarily surrendered their powers of oppression and plunder, and inaugurated any system that would deal justly with the poor and oppressed. If “this.moneyed giant,” he asks, has done So little for labor in the last fifty years, what will it do in the next fifty years, with its tre- mendoug power so much greater today than that ever possessed by any king or aristo- cratic government? “Now what labor really wants, and what it will have before the struggle is ended, is en- tire freedom from the domination of capital. It will repudiate the principle of the servitude of man to money as the war did of man to man. . . it will insist on social arrangements enabling it to retain its earnings. , , “It is determined to unite in itself both cap- ital and labor. It will institute a broad, equit- ‘able and indestructible republic of labor. , , “The little that labor craves today is no criterion of what it will demand tomorrow, , \ Tomorrow it will walk as.a giant, “Let labor prepare for all emergencies, , , We are now entering upon a period of discus- sion. After that will come action, Our first need is organization, in trade unions, labor unions, and unions of any kind that will cement labor jn one common brotherhood, ., ,”