Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-11-01
WHOLE PEOPLE is ARRAYED
AGAINST RADICALS IN LABOR


by the Governments Veor
T'HE Government of the United States
never started anything that it couldn't
finish. The soft-coal miners lost their
strike when they maneuvered themselves
into a position that threatened the peace
of the country and compelled defensive
/ measures by the federal authorities
Evil, wrong headed and incompetent
leadership brought upon the coal unions
the deserved disaster of federal interfer-
| ence.
The operators are out of the discus
| sion. They stood aside and let the head
! long and emotional labor men go straight
into defeat-wth the bewidered miners
at their heels Voluntarily the radicals
adopted methods of terrorism and they
have no conceivable right to the protec-
tion of institutions that they aimed to
destroy.
Since they have assumed the attitude
of enemy aliens. they will have to be
treated as enemy aliens.
If apostles of violence were to go
about Philadelphia putting out the lights,
blockading railway traffic, stopping
street cars, interfering with the distribu-
tion of food and the rights of the people
to work and live in peace they would
properly be regarded as dangerous per-
sons amenable under the law.
That is what the miners leaders pro-
pose to do to the country.
The importance of the injunction re-
toJ H. tl,o aJ koJ
at indianapolis cannot be overestimated
nor can the force and meaning of the
precedent be lightly disregarded. The
injunction gives the sanction of civil law
to plans formulated in Washington to
apply the vast machinery of war legisla-
tion to avert a national disaster plotted
by men whose loyalty is in doubt. 1t is
a departure at once regrettable and in
evitable. The right of men to organize
or quit work is not questioned. A curb
is put upon those who foment hatred and
organize unrest
There is reason to doubt that the coal
strike is merely an agitation for better
wages and better living conditions. 1t
was ordered by a committee which speaks
not only for American miners, but for
miners in Europe and Canada. and in all
aspects it is similar to other labor
demonstrations recently organized upon
international lines for the purpose of
threatening or actually overturning es-
tablished governments.
1t is not even a-national organization
that has planned to terrorize the United
States. 1t is an international organiza-
ton, saturated with revolutionary politi-
cal doctrines and frankly disposed to
consider itself more powerful than gov
ernments.
Only cowardice in Washington could
have caused the government to stand
aloof. If the strikers are denied the use
of the mails and the wire facilities under
federal control they will fill the air with
plants about the abrogation of civil
rights.
They will forget, of course, that they
themselves planned to deny the rest of
the country the use of these same facili-
ties and of others even more important.
The state of affairs that has caused
Attorney General Palmer to ask for an
extension of the Lever act for period of
six months after peace is signed cannot
| be regarded otherwise than as a disaster
for organized labor.
The attorney generals request means
merely that the government, after trying
every means in its power to arrive at
method for the rational settlement of in
dustrial disputes and the appeasement
of labor, is finally compelled to rely upon
| lou ,,aceoJ TO Jao1 with tho
wartime to protect the people from or
| ganizations of it's own citizens.
The extension of the Lever act is justi-
| fed. President Wilson and those asso-
ciated with him are trying merely to give
the nation an opportunity to react from
| the abnormal conditions consequent upon
the war in order that wage settlements
| may be arrived at normally and justly.
| They are not willing to see people
whose affairs have been confused by their
own sacrifice exploited by any one re-
stricted class accidentally in a position
of advantage.
The coal strike is an excellent example
of the method by which various groups
on both sides in industry are aiming to
benefit by the hardships of the multitude.
II the program OF the radical labor
men were to be carried out, organized
labor would deliberately subject the un-
organized labor of the world to harsher
treatment than that of which the, unions
| have always complained.
But there is always the question
whether the men who formulated the
miners demands really desired peaceful
settlements. The soft-coal unions asked
impossible things. Their strike is
strangely timed with other sweeping
/ labor demonstrations organized with a
frankly revolutionary purpose in France,
Italy and Spain.
| Labor has been going over bodily to
the theory that you have a right to any
thing that you can frighten or club out
of society. Recent big strikes have been