Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 February 1937 — Page 14
PAGE 14
The Indianapolis
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Give Light and the People Will Pind Their Own Way
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1937
LABOR: WHERE, FROM HERE? (III) HIRTY-FOUR days of a situation growing steadily more dangerous—more than a month before a conference involving principals was brought about. And on the 34th day such explosive detail as this in the news—“At each end of the avenue Guardsmen crouched behind three machine guns and two howitzers.” Fear of violence worse than any in recent strike history gripping a nation praying
that a settlement may be reached. During those 34 days, losses mounting into the multimillions are taken by labor and capital directly involved,
and uncountable millions more in every State of the Union | where the vast General Motors industry does business |
either as a seller of cars or as a purchaser ofs materials. Lumber, copper, iron, steel, hides, wool, cotton, oil, coal, sulphur, sugar cane and a long list of other products—all go into the making of automobiles; all suffer, and employment in them suffers in its ratio, thing is too vast for the human imagination to grasp. What to do about the condition that gives rise to it?
” » n » » Ld
HILE this motor strike is going on another great in-
dustry proceeds peacefully on its way. In a time gone by it went through what the General Motors is going through today. It suffered plenty. And its labor paid in blood and tears and hunger. That industry is the railroad.
In it there has not been a major strike for 10 years. With
it, collective bargaining, long and bitterly resisted, is now |
accepted and practiced with order, restraint and fairness. We want to repeat—that we believe collective bargaining if to be successful must be a state of mind. And until it is accepted by industry generally as it has been by the railroads such situations as that now in General Motors will continue to occur. And the sad and futile part of it all is that in the end there must be compromise—after the harm has been done. We doubt that labor troubles can ever be cured merely by passing laws to curb the illegalities of capital on the one hand and of labor on the other. Of course the sit-down strike is illegal. Motors toward unit bargaining as defined in the Wagner act is equally contemptuous of the law. But as has been said, the labor probiem is like the war problem, It can’t be solved by proving both sides illegal. Some lawmaking may help, like the application of some of the things England has done. Clearer definitions of collective bargaining might help too. the necessity for some machinery of mediation which will solve the human, as distinct from the legal, problem—which will eliminate the attitude by capital that it will bargain
its workers’ proposals for wages, hours and conditions.
Such machinery of mediation is that which the rail- | | mud and up a long hill in the dark along a course
roads have adopted. In that industry there has been brought
‘about the state of mind on the part of the employers that | | road was shoved through.
collective bargaining is here to stay and is to be taken “in its stride.” n » n ~ n » HE very term mediation presumes acceptance of the principle of collective bargaining. The great advantage of mediation when efficiently administered is that it eliminates at the outset all the long-
distance maneuvering that customarily leads up to the |
strike-first-and-confer-after system under which most labor disputes now operate; prevents the build-up of bitterness which becomes the great obstacle to settlement. Mediation deals with the differences before the trouble reaches the shutdown stage. The show goes on. dence is assembled. Those who represent the contending parties become acquainted with each other and the original wrath at the idea of human beings daring to ask for more pay and better working conditions recedes into reason. As the negotiations are handled by the mediators the reasonable and unreasonable demands on both sides are weighed. And finally, the mediators have a case which, in event of uitimate failure to reach a settlement, can be taken to the public which is the final jury in all labor disputes.
side or the other is likely to be of short duration. It is still more likely not to occur at all, because the weak side must realize the weakness of itg position, and not want to go to the public with it. b There is nothing new in the mediation idea. It merely, with the exception of the railroads, has not been tried as it should as a means for solving the human as well as the economic problems. Where it has just been a casual performance, poorly manned by political appointees within a labor department, it frequently has done more harm than good. But with the railroads, we have a model. Its application should be extended, and quickly, by a Congress which
right now is witnessing the danger and the damage in |
the General Motors conflict.
EXPERT TESTIMONY IF casting about for expert witnesses on the subject of patronage in the Federal Government, we'd pick James A. Farley first and Will H. Hays second. Mr. Farley's experience with patronage, as Postmaster General and Democratic National Chairman, is more recent, but Mr. Hays’ experience, as Postmaster General and Republican National Chairman while the Harding Administration was taking over the Government, was no less intensive. So, when Mr. Hays plugs for prompt adoption of President Roosevelt's plan for Government reorganization, with special emphasis on the President's civil service program, we listen attentively. Real reorganization can be accomplished, Mr. Hays said, only by a fearless President backed by an overwhelming expression of public confidence in his leadership. We have such a President now, and he has such backing. If we don’t reorganize the Government now, we may have to wait half a century before we have as good kn opportunity again, ,
Times | Oh, Jar—By Kirby
Price in Marion County, { 3 cents a copy; delivered |
The damage of such a |
| skiff and asked, | man who wants to get out?”
But beneath all that is | Alton which is neither true Hoo-
| two days’ illness.
| and through woods and
| brother's mules, Kate and Frank.
| seemed to deem
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
" ¢ 18 NOT YET REALIZED
aT THE reve Tien {R AWS COLNTRY 15 DEMOCRATIC I THE
BEST Sense OF TH
{
THURSDAY, FEB. 4, 1937
His Place in the Sun-Lamp—By Talburt
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
Writer Gets Out of Flood Area by Boat, Muleback and Auto and Meets Some Interesting People.
FRENCH LICK, Feb. 4.—Alton, where |
the Coast Guard boats tied up to a tree in front of the church to spend the night, is strictly a river town -off the railroad and connected with the world outside by a paved road which was cut off by backwater, There
Of course the defiant attitude of General | is some farming there on land which is rated as sub- : | marginal and tentatively marked for purchase by |
| the Government and retirement from active service
but otherwise the Ohio River is the means of existence. Lije Parr, known as Chig, 26 years old and a high school alumnus, came alongside in a shallow “Where is the
They speak with an accent in
sier nor downright hill-billy but
| an interesting combination. Edu-
cation is rife and in normal times
; | there is a public bus service to in all other things material, but will resent as effrontery |
take the young ones to and from the consolidated school and the high school. Chig Parr led off through the
Mr. Pegler
which seemed to be a creek bed but proved to be the old road, abandoned 10 years ago when the improved He walked fast and said he was used to it and could keep going all day, and as he walked he talked of fishing and the game to
| be hunted in the woods around, including fox, ‘possum,
‘coon and birds, and of his gran’maw, who died recently. Grandma Parr was 100 years 3 months and 14 days old when she died of pneumonia after She had lived all her days right there on the Ohio River and had seen some great floods and some history since 1836.
» " ”
SHE was quick as a bird until her final illness. but Chig sald he never talked to her much about
| the cld days because she was hard of hearing and
that made conversation difficult.
So there is no
| saying what was lost when Grandma Parr died leaving no memoirs of a period in
The evi- |
: ) Iton on the river to which there is now no living witness. Walking easily through mud and over tumbled stones Chig strode through the dark mostly uphill through the graveyard to the home of his brother, where his pony was loose in a field. But his brother told Chig the little mare
| was lame, which was no wonder for she had made | nine trips out and back in a few days, sometimes
carrying double, and Chig, therefore, caught
his
He threw the pony’s saddle on Kate and hopped
| abofird Frank bareback and led on toward the home
ov Alvin Hahus, a farmef over at the hard road
| who had a car and might take a man up to Bedford A shutdown where the evidence in heavy in behalf of one |
or French Lick to the telegraph wire,
| » 8 ” T= trail led through the woods with overhang- |
ing branches, down sharp drops, throu S S, gh a couple of creek beds where Kate belied the hard-tails’ reputation for surefootedness and finally up the
| long ridges to the home of Mr. Hahus, the farmer,
Mrs. Hahus and her four children sat by the stove and we talked of the flood and of Grandma Parr
until Mr. Hahus came in. He was very courteous
And though it was nearly bedtime for a farmer, he it a Christian duty t stranger. 9. Tein.»
The Hoosier Forum
1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will | defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
WRITER CHARGES MOTORISTS CROWD PEDESTRIANS | By Tom McGuire
Being a comparative stranger in Indianapolis, I perhaps observe | traffic closer than others. Some of our most reckless drivers have a | pernicious habil of crowding pedes- | trians. This is hardly right, as the | motorist has a tremendous lot of | speed and power at his command. | This sort of thing leads to casualties and fatalities. Motorists should apply courtesy { and thoughtfulness to their actions
| when human life may be involved. more than three weeks’ wages, an| FARM POLICY
| Like begets like, so have good man- | ners. To show appreciation for the busi-
| ness involved let us all observe the | | simple rules of safety. It would be |
a good advertisement for Indianap- | olis if the City would repaint the traffic lines at street intersections.
| © # = DECLARES STRIKERS AT
| ANDERSON LACK GRATITUDE By M. R., Anderson
{ Although a few of my friends give me credit for being perspicacious in | some respects, I must admit that when it comes to the local strike situation I am flagrantly dumb. For | example, I can’t understand why some of my neighbors distrust every | friendly gesture made in their | direction by employers who have | their welfare at heart. Yet, these | persons will believe every word | shouted at them by a swarthy or- | Banizer with a foreign accent, whose | only interest is. in dues and mem- | berships. Mr. Sloan, Mr. Knudsen | and others are members of a great | corporation and their relationship | to the lowest member of the corpor- | ation can be traced. Mr, Lewis, Mr. | Martin and others are not members | of the corporation, and they are not | interested in it except as gullible employees can be exploited for their | selfish gains.
I can’t understand how my neigh- |
bors could accept generous bonuses, | pay raises and dividends—as they did less than six weeks ago—and expect more before they have done anything to deserve more. I know that if it were not for the General | Motors units in Anderson, many of these neighbors would still be hired hands on nearby farms making less than $1 a day, with ownership of a { modern car a dream never to be | realized. Many of these men and | women were hired and taught all | they know about mechanized labor | by the local units. They were paid | handsome returns for what they had to know and do. Now they want [more without knowing or doing | more. | Only three years: ago many of [these men and women visited the | employment windows daily, plead|ing for any work—anything, and it didn’t matter what they were to be paid as long as it was something. Already they have forgotten their benefactor. Perhaps I'm dumb, but | 1 believe there should be such a
| (Times readers are invited to
express their views in these col- | religious controversies ex- | cluded. Make your letter short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed, but names will be withheld on request.)
umns,
| thing as gratitude. The benefactors of three years ago have turned to | monsters because an outsider wished m 80. My neighbors were satisfied | until the outsiders appeared. . . . My neighbors all buy General) | Motors cars. They have all lost |
| average of $100 a person. Whatever | | benefits come from this strike must | | be added to the cost of the autos] they help build. This means that | the cars will cost more and since | most of them are periodic buyers, | the money which goes into the] pocket will eventually come out of | the same pocket. They will have | gained nothing in the long run and | they will have Jost their wages while striking and no doubt their 1937 | Christmas bonus. | My ignorance compels me (o ask | —What can the dissenters hope to gain by their strike? » ” n WRITER SAYS RISING MILK PRICES HURT POOR By William D.
The men who try to get farmers a better price for milk forget the consumer and his children. About 76 per cent of bottled milk is consumed by families with two, three, four or more children and the majority of fathers of these families are making $18 to $25 a week. These | families cannot take $2.50 to $3.60 a week out of their pay checks, so they cut down on food and wean their children of milk. Ten cents a quart would be better and 12 cents should be plenty, but they try to force the price still high« fer. Their slogan should be—-Milk for the rich families. ” i" ” DISCUSSES ERNIE PYLE AND AMERICAN CHEFS By J. M. C. In spite of Ernie Pyle’s nonchalant | method of telling us how good Con- |
rad thinks he is, I am quite impressed with Conrad's idea of train-
IMITATION OF THE LIVING By KEN HUGHES
The Msing trees shield Voluptuous curves of the hills, As if the lines of beauty Were not for the gaze of man.
DAILY THOUGHT
If ye love me, keep my commandments.—St. John 14:15.
E are shaped and fashioned by what we love.—Goethe.
General
Hugh Johnson Says—
If Labor Is Defeated in the General Motors Strike, a Definite
Threat to the Principle of the Democratic Majority * Will Result. |
ASHINGTON, Feb. 4—Mr. Walter Lippmann remarks on Mr. Lewis’ “illegal” seizure of property, and the President's being “unwilling or unable” to “enforce the new law which would require Mr. Lewis to submit his claim to represent the workers to a vote.” This omits to mention the company’s alleged illegal interference with employee representation in violation of that same law. The company has suggested no election, has ignored that law and, when charged with violations of it, secured an injunction to prevent any investigating of that charge. Mr. Lippmann also errs—nothing in that law requires Mr. Lewis to submit anything to a vote. General Motors is a du Pont company. du Ponts. through the Liberty League, s and bravely anti-Roosevelt. Mr.
The were openly Sloan was so
outspoken as practically to put General Motors, itself, |
in politics against Mr. Roosevelt, and also against— what?
” s ” R. ROOSEVELT'S principal issues for workers
were collective bargaining and the right to or- | Perhaps the 93 |
ganize Hee fiom employer influence. per cent of unorganized workers did not recognize all the technical formulas, but they were go whelmingly. con Ponts were
in Mr,
corner of “the bosses,” and
toils.”
Roosevelt and Mr. Lewis were for the “man who |
The average wage-earner pictures Mr. Lewis as the very incarnation of thie worker's cause.
{Soon the men have dug the mud
The WwW
By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
ASHINGTON, Feb. 4—If it were not for the fact that tragedy walks with the motor strike,
ing American chefs, It's high time the American chefs spent more time in learning to cook than in dealing “sub rosa” with’ food representatives. A “Wanted, A Cook” sign always amuses me because anyone who can fry an egg and make horrible coffee gets the job. Ernie should take Conrad's idea more seriously and start a movement for good American chefs. Maybe the traveling public would dedicate a monument to you, ” ”n n
CONDEMNS ADMINISTRATION
By L. W. B., Beech Grove I read in The Times recently that Mr, “Corn” Wallace is going to urge greater production this year.
It scems that he is a little late. If it had not been for his meddling, we might have food in storage for | the flood refugees. Nature very | aptly takes care of our abundance without help from a mere Administration. The sad part is that the poor have to suffer for these mis- | takes. ” ” ” WPA INEFFICIENCY CHARGED AT CHRISTIAN PARK By H. RH.
A WPA boss tells his men to scatter out and that not more than two or three men should be at the fire at one time. The men go out to work and plant trees, and do the job as the boss directs. The next day a bigger boss comes and he tells them the trees are planted too deep, so the men dig them out and raise them. The following day anether boss comes and he tells them the trees are not in line, so they dig them out and set them over.
until the trees will not stand, and the gang is told to go around and straighten them up. So it goes. Rock walls are built one week and torn out the next. If the men | stand around the fire a few minutes | the boss tells them to get away. I am not a WPA worker, but I know these things to be facts. Go to Christian Park and investigate for yourself. 4.4 » NEUTRALITY POLICY CALLED DELUSION By N.S. L.
Why get so exvited about discretionary or mandatory neutrality legislation? We are inextricably involved in the world's economic system, That system pretends nationalism on political lines, while it revolves in international gconomic exploitation. The price of exploitation is war and the fiddler must be paid in terms of war. The only alternative is international economic cooperation. That, however, cannot come until the full price for exploitation has again beah paid in death and desolation. Neutrality today is a snare and delusion.
Miss Perkins Burst Into Tears
The Liberal View
By Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes
(Substituting for Heywood Broun)
Removal of Newark Pastor After Years of Distinguished Service Brings Up Old Religious Problem,
EW YORK, Feb. 4.—The eternal struggle between: (1) The utilization of Christianity as a body of pious observances to soothe the consciences of the rich and to serve as a protective mechanism for the vested economic interest, and (2) its exploitation as a spiritually regenerating influence and a powerful force for the advancement of social justice seems to be working out once more in Newark, N. J.
The Rev. L. Hamilton Garner has been removed from the pastor= ate of the Church of the Redeemer after a number of years of really distinguished service. The reason given was the opposition of the trustees of the church to the forum he conducted on Sunday evenings during part of the year, I have had personal contact with this forum for the last seven or eight years, and know that it has been a credit not only to the church but to Newark as a whole. I suppose that if the subject of religion in Newark had been brought up in any liberal gathering In New York or Newark during the last few years the first thing thought of would have been the Rev. Mr, Garner's forum. Of course, the forum may have been only one of the counts held against the Rev. Mr. Garner, His sparkling sermons have been a little too liberal for the comfort of his more affluent parishioners.
Dr. Barnes
u » on
HIS current Newark episode recalls the notable effort of the novelist, Winston Churchill, to thrash out this problem of the dilemma of the liberal minister in his “The Inside of the Cup.” There is no little similarity between the case of Mr. Garner and that of the Rev. John Hodder, who crashed on the rock of the conservatism of Eldon Parr, the banker and the richest member of Hodder's congregation. In Churchill’'s “The Inside of the Cup” the Rev, John Hodder is the rector of a very fashionable Episcopal church. For years he remains satisfied to be popular, restricting his religious activities to precise administration of ritual and his sermons to “pure theclogy.” Then he falls in with the unfortunate victims of the politico-economic system of his city, His conscience is shocked. In the confession of his new faith to his assistant, McRae, Hodder says: “I begin to see more and more clearly that our modern civilization is at fault, to pers ceive how completely it is conducted on the materialistic theory of the survival of the fittest rather than that of the brotherhood of man.”
” ” ”
~~ TODDER then goes to see Parr to tell him of his change of heart and to suggest a similar transe formation on the part of the banker. At the slightest sign of social liberalism on the part of Hodder, Parr says, “So you, too, have come to socialism.” Hodder retorts, “Say, rather, that I have come to Christianity,” But Parr is unmoved. Hodder next preaches a masterly sermon on his new conception of social Christianity. Alison Parr, the banker's daughter, hears it and is deeply moved, She comments: “Mr, Hodder has at least made it plain that Christianity is something more than dead dogmeas, ceremonies and superstitions.”
ashington Merry-Go-Round
in Comedy of Errors on Talks With Sloan;
After That She Thought He'd Stay for Parley With Lewis, but He Didn't.
that Mr. Landon and the du
To millions Mr. Lewis seems the shining symbol of personified labor itself fighting for the rights promised by the New Deal—locked now in a death struggle with the very leaders of the enemy, du Pont and General Motors—labor on the verge of losing— and the New Deal not raising an effective finger in aid. » ” ” WORSE sentiment may follow, If Mr. Lewis is defeated in General Motors, there will be a new and vastly increased resistance to organization in rubber, steel and, above all, as early as April, in that dark and bloody ground of industrial dispute— bituminous coal,
If defeated in Detroit, the whole labor movement
clared enemies. Or, as it soon will be expressed— and the Government of the United States. This is very bad business, Before any such oeneral defeat happens, there is sure to be a fight— fierce physical collision with all the wounds and hysteria of war. What js threatened here is not ‘merely the orum of labor. is threatened,
| lend nowhere and proposed a meeting between Mr.
may thus be reduced to pre-New Deal impotence— | frustrated by a small but powerful group of its de- | | definite impressions:
“Big Business” is ved stronger th le | pro ge Hi She yeop'e | ing Mr. Lewis; (2) that he was remaining in Wash-
Alfred P. Sloan's secret conference with Secretary Perkins last week could have been billed on Broadway as a comedy of errors. Here is the behind-the-scenes story: After publicly refusing to confer with Miss Perkins, the “General Motors head arrived secretly in Washington at 1 p. m. Friday and went directly to Miss Perkins’ personal office. He used her private elevator. His first act was to launch a bitter and vehement attack on John L. Lewis, leader of the automobile strike. With flushed face, he paced up and down before Miss Perkins, denouncing Mr. Lewis. Miss Perkins suggested that such an attitude would
Lewis and Mr. Sloan, After a lengthy discussion Mr. Sloan departed, via the private elevator, leaving Miss Perkins with two (1) That the General Motors chief had been convinced of the desirability of meet-
ington for the night. ” ” n EANWHILE, newsmen got wind of the big story developing and stormed her office. There they obtained no information, but posted watch at her door. Mr, Sloan left Mid Perkins (via the private en-
| Mr, Sloan.
trance) at 5 o'clock. At 6 she met the press, and denied that Mr. Sloan had been there, but finally acknowledged that she had conferred with the General Motors mmutive, Miss Perkis# then issued a cheerful report. She said that Mr. Sloan had left to consult with advisers, and that she would meet the reporters again at 10 p. m. So they immediately wrote the “truce in the mak ing” stories. At 10 p. m. the newsmen were back in Miss Perkins’ office. But she was absent. At 10:30 o'clock one of her secretaries announced that there would be no further developments that night.
un un LJ
"1 ERE was no explanation for this change, but the inside reason was this: At 9:30 p. m., Miss Perkins received a call from This came as a considerable shock. For she discovered that instead of being in Washington, the General Motors president was in New York. Miss Perkins was even more shaken when Mr. Sloan informed her that after due thought he had decided not to meet Mr. Lewis. Miss Perkins burst into tears and went to bed. But about midnight newspaper reporters, on a tip from New York, began battering at her door. Mis hg declared Jak Me Sloan had called on her a Ss own request an en or . Mr. Sloan issued ah emphatic Po TUB. oul, And the motor strike continued.
also, the crumbling
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