The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1917-06-09
FEAR UPRISING #.
FOOD SITUATION
|SNOT REMED|ED
National Council Of Defense Must
Act Quick If Serious Trouble
Is To Be Avoided.

WASHINGTON, June I'm an ar
ticle appearing in the Official Bulletin
Of May %, the thanks Of the Com
mittee on Labor, advisory to the
Council of National Defense, are ten
dered to the British labor spokesman
recently in this city, by Samuel Comp
ers. In the course of this statement
Mr.. Gompers says,
Certain fundamental questions
have required attention (from the
Committee on Labor), one being the
effort to maintain our present econo-
mic NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. and other
wise-until such time as the Council
of National Defense shall request the
lowering thereof because essential to
the maintenance Of our democracy"
This hint that great pressure is be-
ing exerted upon the organized labor
movement to consent to the lowering
of the already Inadequate safeguards
of Industrial life in this country, and
that when the six cabinet members
composing the Council of National
Defense shall request" it the labor
movement may be helpless to oppose
their desire, is further borne out by
another official statement on Mr..
Gompers' part. This latter statement
comes in a letter addressed by him,
on June /, to w. P. Hamrick, a cot
ton mill manager at Columbia, S. c.,
who has been trying to get the Keat-
ing Child Labor Act suspended.
Big Move On Foot.
GAS you say in your letter." OBJ
serves the president of the American
Federation Of Labor, there is on foot
a movement to render the child labor
law and provisions restricting hours
of work. This movement seems to be
part of a larger movement to nullify
or destroy all humanitarian safe
guards that protect the health and
welfare of those who work. Those
directing this movement have taken
advantage of the first period of tran
sition during which the people are
appalled, by their new problems, and
are fearful of what the immediate fu-
ture may contain for them.
Under all conditions the purpose
of our government is to conserve and
further the interests of humanity.
Those standards which safeguard the
health and Well-being Of the people
cannot justifiably be suspended or re-
moved unless the nation is reduced to
the direct extremity: We are not fac
ing such emergencies, nor have we
exhausted our resources to such a de-
gree that we would be justified in
setting aside safeguards that insure
the physical and mental well-being
of future citizens. There can be no
justification for rendering child labor
laws imperative during war, except
when it sha have been demonstrated
that all other methods have failed and
an extreme emergency shall have
been proved to that body charged
with the defense OF the nation-the
Council of National Defense
Anti Labor Forces. Busy.
How grave is the possibility that
the Council of National Defense may
yield to the advice of the anti-labor
forces that are so potent in the United
Stat es Senate and House Of 'Represen-
tatives, and may declare a necessity
for the ten or the tWelVe-hOur day in
munition plants and factories and on
the railroads when no such necessity
really exists, cannot be foreseen. It
is to be borne in mind that such or
CARNATIONS as the National Consum-
ers' League and the National Women's
Trade Union League, as we'll as the
Women's Committee advisory to the
Council of National Defense, are car
rying on a nationwide campaign of
publicity against any such mistake as
would be involved in a decision that
industrial standards must go down.
The manifesto of March II, which is
the last and most representative ex-
preston of the organized labor move
ment of America on the industrial sit"
uation in war time, fatty demands
that these safeguards be maintained.
In spite of these declarations, and
in spite of President Wilson's recent
pledge of support to the Committee of
Labor on this point, the employers of
the country are refusing to increase
wages to meet the rapidly increasing
cost of food and fuel and other neces-
saries. In the past eleven months
there were reported to the United
States Department of Labor 244 in
dustrial disputes, as compared with
total Of 296 for the three years and
four months just preceding. There
are twice as many strikes per week,
this year, as there were year ago.
A man closely in touch with labor
sentiment throughout the country has
just made a tour Of the industrial
cities and the food markets, from
Kansas City to Boston. He reports
the greatest unrest and bitterness
among trade unionists at the big de-
crease in their wages-as measured
in bread and meat and groceries.
Carl Vrooman, assistant secretary
of Agriculture, says that a Polish
priest in Chicago has reported that
five working women in his congrega>
ton have gone insane and killed
themselves, within three months. be-
cause they could not buy food enough
for their children.
In spite Of these facts, which seem
to typefy the situation at it's worst
just now, the Senate is delaying action
on the food control bill, prices are
going higher and these hints are daily
repeated concerning still further
reduction of the standards Of living
of the wage earners.
The answer seems to be forthcom-
ing in the shape of resolutions to be
sent to the senators and congressm en-.
and to the Council Of National De-
Tense, by the labor councils and the
local unions of the country, on these
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