The Johnson City comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1916-1917, 1916-02-10

all become SO IduilIldI' Out hhSH We
look more closely, we find that it was
such a clash Plus something. That
something" touches problems-yes,
problems, if you please--which sweep
far beyond that economic circle in
which purely economic clashes be-
tween labor and capital are con-
fined.
A suggestion which strikes MS with
force is that mob violence is not con-
fined 10 any one section. Human ma
ture in it's unframed, unclaimed state
is mob nature. Since human nature
is the same the world over, it fol-
lows that no section can assume a
holier-than-thou attitude toward an
other section when the question Of
mob violence is to be considered. At
the time when our friends across the
border are most persistent in calling
the South the plant bed OF mob vio-
lence there occurs some incident like
that which happened at Coatesville,
Pa, or Youngstown, Ohio, to prove
that human nature is just as bad in
one section as in another and that, so
far as the negro element is concerned,
if there be a general feeling against
it. it is stronger north of the Ohio
River than south of it. All this is
very common talk; but there is vir-
tue in it, especially after that late
almoA, universal TRADE against Geor-
gia.
There is another feature to be
considered. We are afraid that the
ha syior f.
canoe of the following extract from
the Associated Press dispatch bearing
on the trouble;
"A saloon stood on the corner and
rush was made for the door. In a
minute the crowd filled the little
room and helped themselves TO what
they saw. At dozen or more
places in Wilson avenue barrels of
whisky, with the heads gone, stood
in the roadway, and surrounding
them were many men and women
gulping down the raw liquor or pass
ing it TO friends in the crowd who
could not get close enough to help
themselves.
There is tremendous significance
in these few words. They show that
liquor was chief element in the
destructive Youngstown riot. If there
had been no open saloons in Youngs-
town, that city would now be richer
by a million dollars than it now is
and the world would have been
spared the story of the whole awful
occurrence. The problem of labor
and capital is not allowed to work
10, st,, 10
this end, along comes the darker
problem of liquor, and the two prob
lens Joined manage to make a trag-
edy which shocks the whole country.
That is another trite observation.
but it should be repeated with terri
BILE emphasis.
Federated labor should be one of
the first organizations to espouse the
cause of prohibition. We feel that it
is a misfortune that labor should ever
be represented as against prohibition.
We have just finished reading PRO
hibition and Politics." by l.. Ames
Brown, in the North American Re-
view. 1t is unnecessary to state that
Mr.. Brown is one of the strongest
writer's of that band of anti-prohibi-
tionists who are being utilized by
some of the metropolitan journals in
trying to break the force of the pro-
hibition wave which is sweeping over
the country. Mr.. Brown thus quotes
from President Gompers, of the Amer
lean Federation of Labor:
THE consensus of opinion among
the leaders of organized labor is
anti-I rohibtion. We are opposed to
the legal prohibition of liquor be-
cause we do not want the govern
ment to say to us: You shall not
drink. We do not believe that this
is the right way or even a practical
way in which temperance reform
shall be brought about"
A man of Mr.. Gompers' influence
cannot thus place himself on record
without making a larger place for
liquor in the troubles that labor has
with capital. Would he rather see
the orgies of liquor-cursed labor at
Youngstown and in hundreds of other
places in this country than have the
government say to the laboring man
and to all other men, irrespective of
class or position or occupation, You
shall not drink Nashville Christian
Advocate.