The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-03-16
THE STORY OF THE PEANUT
SHELLS.

AS everyone knows, c. W. Post, or
Battle Creek, Michigan, is not only a
maker of breakfast foods. but he is a
strong individualist, who believes
that the tr~ades-unions are a menace
to the liberty Of the country.
Believing this, and being a mat
ural-born" scrapper for the right. as
he sees it, Post, for several years past,
has been engaged in a ceaseless war
fare against 1.-The Labor Trust" as
he likes to call 1t.
Not being able to secure free ana
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 the 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 now know a whole lot about
these organizations: how they are
~honeycombed with graft, how they
obstruct the development OF legitl-
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-
fes their efforts at boycotting 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 it publicly, as
truth.
Post comes back and gives Fitzger-
aid the lie direct. He denounces
Fitzgerald's statement as a deliberate
falsehood, and undermined 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 l find it, and
the inference naturally is that labor
u~nionites are insidiously spreading
this lie.
An institution Tor a man) 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 ef-
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 sympathize 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 kno,o, for hasn't this wea-
pom, every weapon that could be
thought of, been used (and not SIM
ply by labor u%nions) to put US out Of
business, too?
/ am going to drink two cups OF
Postum every morning from this time
on, and put myself on a diet of Grape
Nuts. Bully for Post!-Editorial in
ne American Journal of Clinical Medicine.