Denver labor bulletin., 1917-04-14
PROBLEM OF LABOR TO
COME AFTER WAR HERE
AS IN EUROPE.
Tammany Hall Politician Be
comes Chairman House Labor
Committee by Seniority;
Hoke Smith is Chair
man in Senate.
By LAURENCE TODD
tspecial Washington Correspondents The
Denver Labor BuIIetinJ

WASHINGTON, April 1O.-Who is
going to do the fighting in this war?
Who is going to pay the bills?
VINO Is gong to go to work in the
munitions plants, the supply plants
and the shipyards, to perform the in
dustrial service that takes five times
as many men as are maintained in the
army and navy under modern war
conditions
These three questions are before the
president and the council of national
defense and congress. They are also
IN the minds of the representatives of
the labor movement in Washington.
now that war has begun.
Ot course the first and superficial
answer is that the young men of the
country who have not yet become
skilled mechanics, and are not vet
married will do the fighting. Skilled
mechanics viii be kept in the shops.
Married men will not be conscripted
until the single men have been taken.
But Secretary of War Baker has hint
ed at some of his difficulties by saying
that the conscription would be s'se-
lectIve. He must not take farm
hands, for the country is facing a dan
gerous shortage of food. He must NOT
take the workers from the railroads,
the steel or coal or iron or corper or
other mining industries, for those
products are needed in greater ouan-
titles than before. He must not in
terfere with general manufacturing,
Tor the export trade and the domes-
tic commerce of the nation cannot
safely be interrupted. No, he must get
the young men who are badly en-
ployed, or who are unemployed. and
put them into the trenches and on the
ships.
Women to Displace Men.
The more the problem is examined.
the more it appears that unemploy-
ment IN the United States is Just now
at very low ebb. There are not
100000 unemployed young men, fit for
military service, in the country. A
lot of young men who ought to be
employed will be declared BY the fam
l!y physicians of their well-to-do ia
Tiers to be unfit for military service.
Most OF the boys who took the Platts-
burg training will insist upon holding
officers positions.
This brings the matter down to the
working man who had expected to re-
main at his useful job in the factory.
He must go, if the army is to be re-
crulted to any great extent 1t will
be discovered that women can take
the place of men in the factories, and
even IN the munition plants, just as
they have in England and France and
Germany and Russia. Women will
apply for the jobs of the men in the
factories, and as in England the man
ayers will advise the men to hunt up
the nearest recruiting officer. The
workers will not only make the NUM-
tions for this war, but they will do
the fighting, and after the war thew
will have to face the problem of get
ting back the jobs held by the women,
the new class of workers.
Then who Will pay for the war?
Wealth Must Be Conscripted.
In its manifesto of March u, the
American Federation of Labor said:
We hold this to be incontrovertible,
that the government which demands
that men and women give their labor
power, their bodies or their lives to
its service should also demand the
service, in the interest of these human
beings, of all wealth and the prod
ucts of human toil-property."
This is the first point on which the
labor forces are going to insist, that
wealth must be conscripted, thru tax
alton, to pay the bill for the war. Big
incomes must be heavily taxed. AL
ready there is a strong demand in the
house for conscription of all individ-
ual incomes above 100000, and some
members say that nobody should be
permitted to have an income of over
$4,000 a year during the war Then
profits and all estates of more
than $4,000 will be made to pay heav-
lily. The American Federation of La
Dor will resist any attempt which may
be made to place tax on incomes Of
less than $4,000, and will urge that
rate on incomes above $4,000 be sharp
ly increased.
Politician Heads Committee.
Now that the House is organized il
is interesting to the trade unionists
of the country to observe that the
labor committee has as its chairman
one James P. Maher. a Tammany pol
itician who is TO be found in Washing
ton during less than half of the time
that congress is in session. Meher
gets the chairmanship, and the con-
troll of the fate of labor legislation for
a hundred million people, because he
happens to have been named to this
committee at an earlier date than any
other Democrat now belonging to 1t.
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