Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1910-02-23
THE STORY OF THE PEANUT

AS everyone knows, C! w. Post, OF
Battle Creek, Michigan, is not only 9
maker Of breakfast foods, but he is a
strong individualist, who believes
that the trades-unions are a menace
to the liberty of the country.
Believing this, and. being a mat
u%ral-born" scrapper for the right, as
he seeslt; Post, for several, years past,
has been engaged in a c~easeless war
fare against "the Labor Trust" as
he likes to call it.
Not being able to secure free and
untrammeled expression Of his opin-
ions on this subject through the regu-
lar reading pages of the newspapers
he has bought advertising space for
this purpose, just as he is accustomed
to for she telling Of his Postum
STORY" and he has thus spent hun
dreds of thousands OF dollars in de-
nouncing trades-unionism.
As a result of Posts activities the
people O know a whole lot about
these organizations: how they are
honeycombed with graft, how they
obstruct the development of legiti-
mate business, curtail labor's output,
hold. up manufacturers, graft upon
their own membership, and rob the
public. Naturally Post Is hated by
the trades-unionists, and intensely.
He employs no union labor, so they
can not call out his men, and he de-
1es their efforts at %boycottfng his pro-
ducts. The latest means of getting"
Post is the widespread publication Of
the story that a car which was re-
Gently wrecked in transmission was
found to be loaded with empty pea
nut shells, which were being shipped
from the South to Posts establish
ment at Battle Creek.
This canard probably originated
with President John Fitzgerald, of
the Chicago. Federation OF Labor,
who, it is said, stated 1t publicly, as
truth.
Post comes back and gives Fitzger-
aid the lie direct. He denounces
Fitzgerald's statement as a deliberate
%falsehood, and undetermined and
cowardly attempt to injure his bust
ness, having not the slightest basis in
fact. AS such an effort. it must be
regarded. 1t is significant that this
statement about "the peanut shells"
is being given wide newspaper pub
licity. In the patent inside of an
Eastern country paper I find it, and
the inference naturally Is that labor
unionites are insidiously spreading
this lie.
An institution Cor a mani which
will resort to moral intimidation and
to physical force, that will destroy
machinery and burn buildings, that
will main and kill If necessary to eff
fects its ends, naturally would not
hesitate to spread falsehood for the
same purposes.
We admire Post. While we have
no enmity toward labor unions, so
long as they are conducted in an hon
est, "live-and-let-live" kind Of a way,
we have had enough of the tarred
end of the stick to s%ympathize thor
oughly with what he Is trying to do.
He deserves support. A man like
Post can not be killed, even with lies.
They are a boomerang every time.
Again we knoU, for hasn't this wea-
pom, every weapon that could be
thought of, been used (and not sim
ply by labor unions) to put US out of
business, too?
I am going to drink t,co cups of
Postum every morning from this time
on, and put myself on a diet of Grape.
Nuts. Bully for Post!-Editorial in
The American JournaloJ Clinical Medicine.