Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-06-20
LABOR ABROGATES
WARTIME PLEDGE
Federation Serves Formal No
tice That It Considers World
War at an End
UNION FOR STEN0GRAPHERs

| Special Dispotch to Evening Public Ledger.
Atlantic City, n. j., June 20.--The
American Federation of Labor today
announced its purpose to regard the
labor agreement between President
Gompers and Secretary of War Baker
null, void and in every way can
celcd' on or before July ! next.
The resolution asserted the agree
ment was intended as a war measure
only and now tho period in which It
was expected to serve has passed ond
that the institution that functioned in
its affairs has automatically dis
| solved.
Musicians who work for wages are
not artists, the federation asserted in
ordering protest TO Secretary of
Labor Wilson against the suspension
of the alien labor act with reference
to musicians coming from abroad TO
compete with musicians of America.
The federation maintains that the
artist classification should apply only
70 geniuses who are not affected by
competition.
Union for Stenographers
The executive council declined to con
cur in request that $50 per week for
clerks and $50 a week for stenographers
be approved as n minimum wage for
such workers, these being the prevailing
rates paid employees Of the Brotherhood
of Railway Clerks in Washington.
An international union. however, for
bookkeepers, stenographers, typists and
other office workers was recommended
and authority was given to proceed with
its organization, providing jurisdictional
rights of other bodies are not trans
gressed.
The executive council was given
power to act with reference to granting
n charter for an international union of
insurance agents, after it had been
stated that every effort in the past to
create such a body had been checked
by wholesale discharge. The same body
was authorized to act with relation to
the creation of department for wooden
ship mechanics and laborers.
Fly unanimous vote, it was resolved
! that each city and town should be au-
, thorized and encouraged TO meet hous
ing needs by municipal building cam
paigns, and that the federal government
should participate by continuing the
Federal Housing Bureau.
In further resolution the fedora.
ton called upon the government to en-
bark at once uron a building movement
and that the public building bill, shelved
in the last session of Congress, be
passed forthwith.
, |, Delegates put through a plea for the
creation OF a permanent housing bureau
with labor represented in the board of
managers.
] Alien Labor Condemned
The construction department of the
quartermaster' corps was scathingly
condemned in a resolution for employ
= ing aliens. presumably Mexicans, upor
government work at Fort Bliss, Tex,
t at cut rates. The resolution urged the
I necessity of giving government work
r to red blooded' Americans only.
r 1T ought to be the policy of oui
e government to keep wages up, not bea
r them down" declared P. H. Mccarthy
s former mayor of San Francisco.
o A resolution vigorously condemninl
|. the employment of Mexican labor wa
sent to the executive council in orde
to avoid placing the federation in th
ct position of creating International fric
st ton
ID President Gompers's services wer'
y lauded in a report which congratulate
n him upon his recovery from injurie
incurred in New York.
An amplifcation of the world wa
e plan of training camps for officers, as
a step toward the total extinction o