The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 5, 1918, Page 12

.._.___ On the Firing Line With the Farmers " National Convention of Organized Labor Met in St. Paul, and Saw the League Battle at Close Range—Both Work to the Same End Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader ., |JRGANIZED labor and the or- ganized farmers are going in America. That is the mes- sage brought back to the na- tional capital by labor officials who attended the 38th annual convention of the American Federation of Labor at St. Paul. Hundreds of the delegates to that parliament of labor went to St. Paul with only a vague notion of the existence of the National Nonpartisan league, and of its alliance with organized labor in Minnesota and other states of the Northwest and West to recover political power for the workers in the field and the workers in the shop. They came away with a clear notion of the League and of its program, and an abounding enthusiasm for both. Cries of “disloyalty” which had prejudiced a few of the labor men from distant parts of the country were dispelled by the first day’s acquaint- ance with the labor men of Minnesota and the Dakotas, who have been partners with the farmer organization in this job of political sanitation. Lies spread broadcast by the anti-farmer press to poison the public mind were given their proper. valuation. The historical change of relations be- tween town ‘and country, from suspicion to friend- ship—begun in the East last November by A. C. Townley—was completed. An understanding was reached. IN THE ZONE OF * CO-OPERATION °* Delegates who arrived in St. Paul on the morn- ing of June 10 discovered that the governor of the state would not be present to welcome them. He was fighting the organized farmers and organized labor, each on their economic and political fields, and Minnesota labor refused to permit him to ap- pear at the convention. Governor Burnquist’s name was not once mentioned during the 10 days of sessions in the Capital City. The president of the central labor body in St. Paul, who gave an address of welcome, proved to be one of the local candidates elected by the labor- farmer alliance. Mayor Hodgson of St. Paul, who spoke eloquently and sympathetically of the work of organ- ized labor in the reconstruction of the world, was found to be the friend of the same elements. Mayor Van Lear of Minneapolis, an accredited delegate in the convention from the Interna- tional Association of Machinists, was found to be enlisted in the great polit- ical crusade of the labor and farmer forces. Secretary Lawson of the State Federation of Labor was scarce- ly less active in cementing the union of farm and town workers. The dele- gates from distant points, who had not come in contact with the League before, marveled at the spirit of co- operation which in a few short months had been developed in Minnesota. OPENED THE EYES OF LABOR LEADERS Samuel Gompers, president and the leading figure in the American Feder- ation of Labor from the day it was organized, watched closely the devel- opment of the situation. Busied night and day with the duties that go with an annual convention of the represen- tatives of nearly three million organ- ized wage workers, he could not get away to study the Minnesota cam- paign in the field. However, several of his assistants, including Grant Hamilton, leglslatwe agent of the federation in the national capital, and Miss Florence Thorne, secretary to Mr. Gompers and assistant editor- of the Amerxcan Federationist maga- Bk henceforth to go hand in hand- William Geiger, June 13, for a monster League rally. det the speakers talk, but the sign had its effect. The farmers all jumped into their 331 automobiles and drove over into. the next county, 12 miles away, where ‘they held their meeting uninolested. President Townley, in speaking of the organization of farmers, often expresses the wish that “some day every farm in the nation will carry on its barn the legend ‘Union Barn.’” hopmg that this ls the beginning of the realization of that wish. The struggle for higher wages is one thing—the struggle-to. be freed from economic injustice is another. not understand the purposes of organized labor and the or- ganized farmer see in them nothing but selfish materialism. But the struggle for property falls into the background when Those who do the political and social aims of the producing classes are consid- ered. Here in this story are given some of the noble and civiliz- ing doctrines of the American Federation of Labor, with com- parisons showing how closely they are aligned with the program of the farmers of. the West. zine, were able to go to St. Cloud on Saturday, June 15, and witness a typical meeting in the primary campaign. They saw the local authorities at St. Cloud forbid the holding of a farmer rally in the courthouse, which had been promised by the sheriff for this purpose. They saw several thousand farmers and their families patiently accept this injustice, and move out to a pasture near the town, the 400 or 500 automobiles parked along the road and in the field giving the lie to any suspicion that this was a rabble or an irre- sponsible element,. The federation visitors heard the League speak- ers urge the vast crowd to remain patient, and to take no measures of reprisal even though their right of free speech had been violated. The whole’ affair was so like the typical experience of labor organizers in a bitterly anti-union region, such as the iron range or the Colorado coal fields used to be, that the trade unionists from the East needed no argument to convince them of the issue. THE HOUSE OF HAVE AND THE HOUSE OF WANT Andrew Furuseth, author of the seamen’s act and president of the International Seamen’s Union of North America, expressed their thought. “It is the world-old struggle,” he said. “These are the House of Have, and you farmers are the House of Want. There is nothing that you farmers are going through, that we of the labor movement have not had to go through, and with the same kind of people.” ‘ Coming back through the town of St. Cloud after the meeting in the cattle pasture, the labor visitors saw the home guards on every corner, their guns in hand. When the visitors got home to their hotel in St. Paul that night, they knew where their sympathies lay: They were with the farmers. This sympathy deepened as primary election day came and went, and the Burnquist forces triumphed over farmers and city workers alike. League members who came into the convention hall were eagerly questioned for the latest news of the fight, and the pleasure of the union spokesmen at every hopeful report was almost as great as though the winning of an important industrial strike had been N | THE FIRST UNION BARN | Here you are—the first “union barn” on record. This was the sign that greeted the 1,500 farmers of Scott county, Minn., when they gathered on the farm of z PAGE TWELVE The sheriff refused to announced. They all realized that the re-election of Burnquist would mean dark days for the labor movement in Minnesota, while a defeat for Burh- quist and a repudiation of his public safety com- mission would mark the dawn of an era of freedom for the wage-workers of the state. On Tuesday night Furuseth of the Seamen and President Konenkamp of the Commercial Tele- graphers’ union were the speakers at the after- election jubilee supper .of League boosters at the, Sherman hotel. They pledged sympathy and mu- tual aid between workers of town and field, and the League organizers returned the pledge. Then came a development that surprised and enraged the old political gangs in the Twin Cities. . Samuel Gompers, Mayor Van Lear and four mem- bers of the recent labor mission to Europe.ap- peared together on the platform at a big loyalty massmeeting in Minneapolis. The organized labor forces of Minneapolis had formed a branch of the American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, which has formulated a program of economic improve- ments that is similar to the economic program of the League, so far as wage-workers’ interests are concerned. It was to celebrate the extension of the alliance to Minnesota that its head, Mr. Gom- pers, was introduced by Mayor Van Lear to the big audience that night. Back of the Minneapolis meeting was the suggestion to the “disloyalty” shouters in that city that they had best be careful in the future:~— The whole force of the American Federation of Labor backs up the reputation on patriotism, as well as the industrial proposals, 'of the farmers’ allies in the Mill Cxty ' THE DEMANDS OF ORGANIZED LABOR The labor convention adopted many resolutions calling for humane and enlightened legislation to which the organized farmers are committed, and for which every League congressman or state or country legislator will work and vote at every op- portunity. It demanded heavy taxation of war profits. It demanded the immediate federal ‘enfranchisement of women. It demanded the re-enactment of the child labor law which the supreme court has nullified. It called for a responSIble judiciary. It asked that in every activity of 'the government the workers be fairly and adequately represented in- the administrative staff. It called for serious study of the problems of old age pensions, sickness insurance, and vocational re- education of all industrial cripples as well as war cripples. On the subject of education it ap- pealed for better methods, designed to . fit the children of this generation for the most capable and humanely intel- ligent citizenship in the next. Partic- ularly it demanded that the vocational courses in school shall include teach- ing in the true history of the devel- opment of the organizations of labor, and the effects of labor organization upon social and industrial conditions. It offered this protest against the false history and the suppressive silence with which our schools have passed over the big facts of the eco- nomic struggle between the masses and the exploiters of the masses: in America. demand, in the midst of a great war, must be counted a suecess. A ‘con- vention that not merely achleved this, but went on and struck hands in last- ing féllowship with the movement of the organized and militantly progres- sive farmers, was a triumph. ‘Here’s A convention that could voice this’ * D v o die LT kit A e sy