Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1904 — NATION AND LABOR CLASH. [ARTICLE]

NATION AND LABOR CLASH.

As in Miller Case, Union Workmen Demand Formal Recognition. Again has the important question been raised, Shall organized labor attempt to force the government to recognize its constitution*and by-laws? This question was up not long ago at the government printing office, where Assistant Foreman Miller of the bindery was reinstated upon orders from the President against the protest of the bookbinders’ union, Miller being an expelled member of that union. Twenty-eight union bricklayers employed upon improvements at the arsenal in Washington, where the war college is located, refused to work because a colored non-union bricklayer appeared on the scaffold. It was necessary to increase the force of workmen, and to do so Captain Sewell selected the names of several at the top of the eligible list The white union men notified the foreman that the colored non-union man must quit or they would- The matter was taken up to Captain Sewell, who discovered that while some objection was made to the man because of his race, the principal objection was that he did not belong to the bricklayers’ union. The controversy undoubtedly will be used in the, coming campaign for what political capital it is worth, but the government’s attitude is that the laws of the land are supreme.