The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1916-05-27
LABOR ME|NACED by
-! :;!s:?EPAREDNEss BILL B.
National Gua4s Lobby Pulls
Down Subsidy Of $50, ,0oo, 900
from Uncle Sam.
MILITARY MACHINE"
DECLARED A MENACE
Senator Borah and Others Wage
Hot Fight Against Danger
Gus Measure.

WASHINGTON, May 26.-1t is
about time that labor woke up to
what is being put over" on it in the
name of preparedness"
AS it now turns out, the biggest
single item of pork" in the whole
| preparedness campaign is likewise
the very feature which has the most
menace to the interests Of labor, or
ganized and unorganized.
That item is the $50,000,000 sub
guard lobby has pulled down-or
threatens to pull down-for the or
ganized militia of the several states.
Most of this $50,0O0,00O will go di-
rectly into the pockets of the men,
bers Of the guard. In salaries rang
ing from $500 per annum down.
This salary is frankly designed to at
tract and hold men to the disagree
able duties which the business inter-
ests Of the country impose, at inter-
walls, upon the national guard. The
remainder Of the appropriation will
be used to purchase armored motor
cars, machine guns and other types
of efficient" equipment.
The slogan of the national guard in
this raid upon the treasury is: Fork
over a subsidy and 'federalize' u.s."
That contains two propositions,
both of which are ininical to labor.
Opposed InCongres.
Senator Borah, N the upper house,
and Congressman Meyer London in
the lower, are making a hard fight
against the national guard PROPOSE
| ton and they are being backed by
| those senators and congressman who
find the national guard lobby pretty
hard to stomach.
Senator Borah has attacked the
scheme on two grounds-first, that is
a vicious thing to build up, through a
subsidy from the federal treasury, a
huge military machine which will
grow to dominate feGCral politics, lie
predicts that the national guard will,
in a. few years, be demanding any
where from $1O0,0O0,OOO to
100000 and that the congress-
man will be afraid to say no. His
second point is that the national
guard, through it's development of
the court martial, has demonstrated
that it is unfit to be entrusted with
any more power.
"Our forefathers dreaded the idea
of a big standing army, said the sena-
tor, "but here you propose to create
standing army of 100000 with
greater powers than any army ever
had on American soil.
For this national guard machine
will have more power than the regu-
lar army has ever dreamed of hav-
ing. 1t will have three sorts of power.
Like the regular army. it will have
the power of the gun, the power of
brute force, not something to be
lightly handed over to. any group of
men. Secondly, it will have what the
regular army has never had since the
Civil War-the power to court mar
tial and punish civilians. Since the
Dick law was passed a few years ago,
the national guard has repeatedly su-
perseded the civil authorities with an
effrontery unparalleled in American
history. And finally this huge mill
tary machine will have-what the
regular army does not have-the
power of the ballot. BY it's vote it
will control or aim to control, federal
politics in every congressional dis
trict, to make and unmake members
Of both houses Of congress. Our FORE
fathers would turn in their graves IL
they could see us yielding ourselves
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