The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-02
TO BH TrsrED rN courr

- @~@< In the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri. in which Kansas City is iocat. cd. case Is shortly to be decided which will have an important bearing on the question of the right of city to discrim-
 mate In favor of union labor. One of the
 ordinances of Kansas City declares that all printing used and ordered by the city shall bear the imprint of the recog-
 nized union label of the Allied Printing Trades Council of Kansas City" No one
 not warped by prejudice. can fail to see the injustice of such a requirement. As The Kansas City Journal we'll says:
 The. city taxes non-union workingmen and their employers the same as 1t taxes union men and their employers. It re- auires them to obey it's laws. In case of their work and help preserve the peace. In short. 1t lays upon them every duty, responsibility and burden that it imposes upon those who belong to. or employ clares that when 1t has any favors to be- stow 1t will bestow them only upon those who have provided themselves with a. union. label It is the government of aT the people: and vet it makes its laws eyid its business subservient to the wishe, of a comparativels small part of the people.
 How can any unprejudiced Person fail to see the injustice and partsanty of such an ordinance? In that c''.y, as in al, oth. CT important cities. Eere are non-union printers and bindefs. They are subject to all the laws s2d requirements of the city. the county, and the State. They bear their pr4portion of the burdens of governmeen's yet the city says to them:
 You pZnust join the labor union or you ar~ not entitled to the rights and privi- ieges of other citizens. We win make you pay taxes. bear arms to keep the peace. and impose on you all the other duties and burdens of citizenship. but you are not entitled to receive any of the funds which you have helped to provide g This is in effect just what the authori- ties of Kansas City say to certain class of law-abiding citizens. We admit that a private employer has a right to employ only union men or only non-union men. or that he may employ both. if he so elects, but no fair minded man can claim that a city government can So discrimi- nate. and we agree with The Journal in its contention that Laws which provide that certain men may work for the pub lie because they belong to certain social Or business organizations, and that others shall not be permitted to work for 1t be- cause they do not belong to these social or business organizations. are class leg islation of the most fragrant and inde- fensble kind and are a reproach to the community that allows them to exist"
 But this Jackson County case is not the only one where union labor and city or other laws are likely to come in conflict. In a recent issue of The New Bedford Standard we find this paragraph, which we had not before noticed:
 A recent trade union demand in Chicago is one made on the city government that an uncompleted school building will not non union labor is torn out. To comply with tsis demand would involve a con siderable destruction of the building as far as It IS constructed. and naturally correspond ng extra cost to the city.
 The Standard may we'll speak of this as "an extraordinary demand" and it might have gone further and characterized 1t as outrageous as well as extraordinary. And. as that paper says. the unions could with equal justice demand that all buildings in Chicago not erected by union labor shall be torn down, or they might with equal propriety refuse to work at repair ing or enlarging 2 building erected by non-union men. Just what the city sov- ernment has done in this case we are not advised. but If the unions of that city have Sam Parks among them this is a good opportunity for him to get in good graft