The Connecticut labor press., 1919-12-06
Another Instance of the Deter mined Effort to Poison the Public Mind Against Organ ized Labor Now That the War Time Necessity for Its Co., Operation Is at an End.
By CHESTER M. WRIGHT.

By CHESTER M. WRIGHT.
 Two men high in the government dur ing the war have recently made state mentS ret1ecting upon the integrity of the trade union movement which their own experience with labor during the war should have taught them were un- true. These men are William C. Red field, fofmer secretary of commerce, and Charles Piez, formerly in the Elmer gency Fleet Corporation.
 MT. Piez is most extreme i'll his state ment. At meeting of the American Mining Congress he said:
 At this time organized labor IS g stronger in solidarity than ever before in its history. There is evident in its method and its aims none of the care and consideration that should attend the exercise of great power. It has thrown caution to the winds, and is prepared to wreck the state itself in its blind in- tent to follow the course laid by rad icalism."
 If MT. Piez knows that the American labor movement IS prepared to wreck the state he should produce the proof and if he doesn't know it he should make no such statement. As matter of fact, a great part of the energy of the trade movement today IS expended in fighting that destructive philosophy which has crept in among us to under mine our institutions.
 MT. Herbert Hoover, who ought to know something about his subject points out that the trade unions were mainly responsible for driving Be1a Runs BolsheviSt government out of Hungary. Upon the collapse of the sKerensky government, long before MT. Hoover made his discovery, Samuel Gompers said that if there had been a we'll organized trade union movement in Russia there would have been no Bolshevist success.
 Mir. Piez falls headlong as a prey to that state of mind which breeds ex- tremism of statement. He evidently IS excited and when excited many persons forget facts and get careless with truth. In some calmer moment he ought to have the grace to admit his rashness and inaccuracy.
 The American labor movement is most deeplv concerned with the whole situation that has to do with the sta bility of America. It appreciates thor oughly the menace of the Bolshevik threat. It believes implicitly, however, that where democracy lives, and justice prevails, there can never be any Bol- shevik success. The great mass of or ganized wage earners in America shun Bolshevism. They know what it means and they know why they want none of 1t. Bolshevism has its chief supporters in two classes--the immigrant popula- ton and the intellectual freaks.
 Take the trade unions out of Amer ica and Bolshevism might sweep the country tomorrow. With the trade unions free to act, free to grow, free to participate dernocratically in the free life of democratic nation and no Bol- shevism can ever set up the standard of success.
 MT. Piez is invited to go to some quiet place for 10@or Is minutes of earnest thought Any person who thinks honestly for that length of time will arrive at the conclusion that what MT. Peiz told the Mining Congress is ridiculous and the cheapest kind of gallery play. ...,
 MT. Redfeld was less bombastic. We seem reluctantly forced to admit" he said, speaking of the steel and coal strikes, ''that the stoppage of work was deliberate, undertaken at a time when production was vital to the nation i'll order that two separate relatively small groups, not unanimous among them selves, might have their own gains en- 'hanced even through the nations dis tress." .,
 Has MT. Redfeld read the report of the senate committee that investigated the steel strike? Has he followed the coal conferences in Washington? Or does he just gather up words and hurl them forth regardless? Cabinet train ing should have taught him caution.
 Why does nobody think to state the case this way? We seem forced to conclude that the refusal of the en- p1oyers to negotiate was deliberate, made at a time when production was vital to the nation and i'll order that their own gains might be enhanced even through the nations distress"
 The right of workers to call for and secure the opportunity to negotiate Is conceded by most of the civilized world burdened and disgraced by a segment that chung to the age before it. The present phase of civilization is so bur dened. There are some employers who think and act after the mapner of the old time baron III the big house on the hill. A few still cling to the ambitious role of heavenly trusteeships in be1ated imitation of 7 the late MT. Baer.. To them the welfare of the nation is mat ter distinctly secondary to their own profit.
 The trade union movement fought pacifsm and pro-Germanism and Bol- shevism throughout the war. It is ex- actly the same trade union movement now that 1t was then-on1y year ago. It is fighting Bolshevism today. It will continue to fight Bolshevism, both among the foolish; the blind and the ignorant, and among the reactionaries whose greed affords Bolshevism SO