The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-09
Manufacturer Takes Issue With
 Bryan and BsVtridge
DOUBLE MISTAKE IS MADE
J. S. Van Cleave Takes Political Leaders To Task for Altitude on Labor Questions and Says La
 bor Is Not Concerned.

Washington, October s.-(SpecialO The attitude of neither party on the labor question Is approved by J. $. Van Cleave, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. Tn statement made public here MT. Van Cleave, who as president of the Buck Stove and Range company of St. Louis has engaged in a legal fight against the boycott system of the American Federation of Labor criticises both William J. Bryan and Senator Albert ]. Beveridge of Indiana for mixing pol itics with labor In their Joint political debate now running In the Reader Magazine. MT. Van Cleave says:
 The first criticism which the aver age intelligent, unbiased American would make on the discussion of the labor question by Messrs. Bryan and Beveridge in the September number of the Reader Magazine Is that each dis putant mixes the subject up too closely with politics. In no vote directly in- volving any labor issue which has ever taken place in congress has party
 
 clans of each party have been bidding for the labor vote ever since the labor unions have become large enough to project themselves into figures that impress the eye, More national laws in aid of labor have been enacted by the republicans than by the democrats, and this is largely because the republi- cans have controlled the b,fw making machinery longer \ Bat ex, Nat as tho noIittciops b.,,o lr,y ti,, ,.,,, ,, 2 ,. party advantage. republicans 4nd demo crats have been on each side in all the divisions of labor issues.
 Double Mistake.
 Tn their attitude toward labor the politicians made double mistake. They assume that the labor unions rep resent all the working forces of the country, whereas the aggregate mum Der of members in all the unions is less than 2500 000--men, women and children-while the total number of the country's wage workers is 32,000. 900. The politicians other mistake is In imagining that the manual laborers are the only workers. Some employers work more hours and work harder in each hour than any of their employees. The politicians fall into the same blum der as John Mitchell did when he said, in a recent newspaper interview. that labor produces all wealth.
 Capital and labor are necessary. the one to the other. Capital-which means also the brains which created It, and which puts it to work in production and in stribution-furnishe the in- tellgent direction which makes labor profitable to itself and to capital, which provides new work for each. and which promotes the interests of the country
 This blunder of mstaking the de- mands of the bosses of the 2,500O00 members of the labor unions for the voice of the 32,000 900 wage workers of the country has led Mr. Bryan to ask for the abolition of the injunction and has melted MT Beveridge to favor the narrowing of It's scope and the destruction of it's equality in operation. This means that Beveridge and Bryan want Legislation in the interest of class and this chances to be the very small class for which the labor union leaders speak As 1t stands, the in- junction applies impartially to employ CTS and employees. corporations and in- dividuals. The injunction has been and is now being enforced against corpora tons more than 1t is against laborers, organized or unorganized. Let the in- junction stand as 1t is
 No Special Favors Asked.
 And there arc excellent reasons to believe that there is no powerful de- mand among the rank and file of the labor unions for the special favors for them which Bryan and Beveridge ask. In the congressional campaign of 1906 Mr. Gompers and other labor union leaders prescribed certain congressman who opposed the anti-injunctlon bill, and took the, stump against them. But in every instance the blacklisted con gressmen were reelected, and some of them received larger ma jorities than they got two years earlier. This shows two things very plainly. No consider able portion of the members of the la bor unions want the injunction to be abolished and diluted. The members of the labor unions. like the great body of the country's workers. retain their political independence, vote as individuals. and refuse to obey the or ders of political bosses In or out of their own ranks. When the republican and democratic politicians grasp these truths they will drop tleir cowardly and insincere trucking to what they imagine to be the labor vote, and they will deal with the labor auestion on broad, sane, American lines.
 Sane treatment of this question would exclude such a sweeping applica- tion of the eight t-hour rule as both of these political leaders propose. am as much in favor of Legislation 10 abol- ish the evils of child labor as either Mr. Bryan or MT. Bevcridge. but their for dealing with 1t are too radical and indiscriminate. Far better legislation in the interest of children than any which Messrs. Bryan and Beveridge propose Is legislation which would attach a manual training to all the public schools of the country.
 While we are talking about labor let us have laws to make blacklisting and boycotting criminal offenses. Some states have such laws now Every state should have them. And congress should pass such laws for the terri tories and the District of Columbia l am just as strongly opposed to the blacklist as the boycott, and always have been. Both are relics of barbar- fam They should be cast out utterly