The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-11-17

GO ICSdI PIOOCCSuuSoo OI ct1Iy uuly COuoUI- tuted court. It has insisted on such action on the part of its members and its undoubt- ed prestige all over the country is due largely to the fact that it has stood unhesi- tatingly for the enforcement of law and order
 It's argument that the food and fuel control act under which the injunction pro- ceedings were taken does not now and never did apply to the workers Of the coun try is too weak to call for refutation. Com mon sense will tell everyone that any indi- vidual or body of men, whether they be members of capital or labor groups, con- spring to limit, restrict or destroy either food or fuel supplies within the meaning of the law, can be handled by that law. The fact that certain individuals conspiring or openly attempting to curtail the nation s fuel supply belong to unions does not ren- der them immune to the law. Only the rankest sort of class legislation could bring that to pass and the fuel and food control act was designed and enacted to protect every American citizen and not bring i'm munity to anyone.
 And the unions having been proven to- be in the wrong, MT. Gompers does not i'm prove the situation, nor add to his prestige by denouncing the administration. In its enforcement of law and order, the adminis- tration does not have to be concerned over the position taken by the American Feder- ation of Labor. If that body of affiliated unions objects to such enforcement it places itself in rather unenviable position and it will have to do the explaining, not the ad ministration. MT. Gompers should remem- Der the result of the recent Massachusetts gubernatorial election when, after a tilt with federated labor over the Boston police strike, in which he opposed the federation Coolidge was reelected by the biggest vote ever given a Massachusetts candidate. President Wilson correctly diagnosed the returns when he wired Governor Coolidge that all Americans combine when it is question of maintaining law and order. The administration need worry but little over Mir. Gompers' abjuration of loyalty under such circumstances. It means gain rather than loss.
 "We are free men and we propose to exercise the freedom of our judgment" is la declaration more worthy of Schnabel than fitting for MT. Gompers. The mem bership of the Russian Workers Union is for the most part occupying rooms in fed eral jails for attempting to put that idea in force. America is free country, each citizen is free, but none of us may exercise the freedom of our judgment to the disad- vantage of the general public interest. That lis we'll recognized principle of American government and it applies equally to the American Federation of Labor as to the Russian Workers Union.
 Public opinion, once aroused, is the strongest force in American life Such in dustrial or trade organizations as exist in America today do so only on the approval of or by the suffrance of public opinion. The I. w. w. with its propaganda violence and overthrow of orderly government has merited and received the approbrium ot the big majority of Americans It is an outlaw order. The A. F. o. L., on the con- trary, has won approval turnout the coun- try by its united support of law and order It would be a distinct loss to the country to see it go down to oblivion thru mistaken sense of injury to union principles where none has been inflicted.
 The strike will end, says MT. Lewis, because we are Americans and cannot fight