Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-05
FAIR PLAY FOR woRKINGMEN.
Manufactures Association President
Advocates Unbiased Treatment.

CHICAGO, ILL.,, December 5.-Peadng for
square deal" between capital and labor.
James w. Van Cleave of st. Louis, presi-
dent of the National Association of Manu-
facturers, today startled big employers
with his address before the convention OF
the Citizens Industrial Association OF
America at the Auditorium Hotel because
of the radical views expressed in favor OF
fair play for honest labor unions.
Oppressive employers were classed with
the radicals in the labor movement who
foster socialists and anarchists.
Mr.. Van Cleave prefaced his remarks by
saying that he represented an organization
whose members employed close to six mill
lion persons. In the course of his address
he said:
LAS an advocate Of fair play 1 am going
to say a few words today to my fellow
employers on our duty to give a square
deal to our employees. We see socialists,
anarchists and extremists of every kind
springing up on all sides. Let US question:
ourselves and learn whether We have had
any part in generating these implacables
and destructionists.
I'm the recent campaign Samuel Gompers,
head of the American Federation of Labor,
declared war on many candidates for Con-
gress because they refused to support meas
ures which he advocated in the interest,
or the imagined interest, of organized labor.
In the same campaign William r. Hearst,
with the most radical creed ever cham
pioned by any candidate for high office in
the history of America, received nearly
seven hundred thousand votes for governor
of New York.
Mr. Chairman it is we'll to understand
that some Of the captains of industry, the
heads of some of the great aggregations
of capital and some of the employers OF
labor in general, are in a measure re-
sponsible for Gompers and Hearst.
But have We killed Gomperisffi and
Hearstism? That is the question. They
were only leaders in the eruption We
fought. The outbreaks can be remedied
permanently only by removing the abuses
which caused them.
LAS We all know, there are autocratic
and oppressive employers. Judging by their
many acts they seem to believe that the
relations between capital and labor are
like those between two belligerents in war.
Toward their workers they hold hostile
attitude.
They employ the rules Of war in man-
aging their business. With them every
sort OF aggression is fair which they can
with the statutes. They appear to think
they are justified in taking every advan-
tage which offers itself over their workers
and also over the public.
1T is the one oppressive employer out
of hundred who generates the wrath OF
demagogues and their dupes. For the sins
of this one offender the disturbers condemn
the ninety nine fair and humane employers.
This one sinner, therefore, becomes more an
enemy to the members OF his order than TO
the element he arouses into eruption.
Let one suppose 1 will attempt 10
excuse the vices and follies of the trade
union autocrats. There is not man mere
with profounder contempt for them than
l. But we must discriminate between these
political laborers among the heads or the
unions and the laborers themselves.