Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-04-30
LOCAL LABOR NOT BEFUDDLED
BY DEBSoNIAN BOMBAST
Workingmen Are in No Mood to Tolerate
Any BoIsheVst-l. w. w. May
Day Demonstrations Here

ana America, nave usually peLeIeu ouI
before the demonstration was made.
In Europe the thing was usually
planned by the Socialists. who announced
that they were the forerunners Of great
revolution. The revolution failed to re-
vove.
In America, men with initiative minds
thought to capitalize discomfort for their
own purposes and they have talked in
past years of great May day parades Of
protest.
There have been some parades, but the
great mass of labor has been indifferent.
We don't do things that way over here.
American labor chooses to progress by
evolution rather than by revolution.
There have been threats in America
this year that labor would call general
strike on May as a protest against the
punishment of Eugene v Debs for viola
ton of the espionage act. Dcbs himself
threatened that unless he were released
there would be 5000 demonstrations
throughout the country in condemnation
of the action Of the court in convictng
him.
Tomorrow is the date fixed for the or
ganized condemnation of. the course of
judicial processes, but it does not look as
if anything serious were going to happen.
A Victory Loan campaign is in progress.
The attention of the public here and
everywhere is concentrated on the task OF
putting the loan over.
Such paradcG as we are seeing IN the
streets arc directed by mon and women
whose minds are so full of patriotism and
so charged with eagerness to help the
nation raise the money to pay its war
bills that they have no time to give to
consideration of the case of man con-
victed of doing all he was able to do to
interfere with successful prosec ltion of
the war.
There will be no Debs protest parade
in this city for two reasons.
The police will not permit it, in the
first place. for the reason that they are
not willing to allow even handful of
Socialists and Bolshcvists to do any
thing which would in the slightest degree
distract attention from the loan cam
paign.
And, in the second place, the labor
unions of the city are announcing that
they arc opposed both to a strike and to
parade These are the unions, affiliated
with the American Federation of Labor.
This federation has co-operated with
the government so heartily during the
war that it has won the respect of every
one. including those who in the past were
wont to look askance at the activities of
the organized mass of workingmen.
Mr.. Gompers himself has been most
active in assisting the government in
every way possible. He has given it the
benefit of his advice and he has used his
influence with the members of the fedora
ton to keep them loyal to the great cause
in which the nation was engaged and to
postpone pressing for the redress of any
lust grievances which they might have.
His task was comparatively easy for the
reason that the great mass of American
workingmen, both in the federation and
out of it, is intelligent and broad-minded
and disposed to play fair. There are eX-
ceptions, but they stand out like the dis
cordant notes of an instrument out of
tune Ill d SlSaI lIlico VI
They attract attention because they are
discords.
Those timid persons who fear an out
break of Bolshevism in America should
take courage when they think on these
things. This is a democracy, a country
of law and land where the opportunity
exists for any man to rise as far as his
abilities will carry him.
Debs was tried in the courts by his
peers He violated the law. He boasted
of it-not that he violated the law. but
| that he had expressed the views and did
the things which the law forbade, and he
insisted on his right to do with impunity
that which his conscience dictated.
1t is impossible to befuddle the minds
| of thinking men with any such sophistry
| The policeman on the corner, the trolley
car conductor, the expert machinst, the
| man who runs a loom knows that the
| Germans who were blowing up our muni
| ton factories were acting in accordance
with the dictates of what they called
their conscience, but no red -bloodec
American has yet arisen to ask tha
those Germans who were caught shoulc
| be released from prison on the grounC
that they were acting up to their lights
We have confidence in our courts be
cause we have made them ourselves. TIL,
judges are the product of our democracy
Many of them are the sons of working
men, who have been selected because O
their qualifications to preside on tn
bench. The juries are made up of ou
nejghbors, the men who work at the ma
chine next to ours and the men who rid
to the shop in the same street car wit
us. We know that when the evidence j
submitted to US we should find the sam
verdict which they find. And we kno'
also that the members Of the America
Federation Of Labor are ordinarily me
Of lie Sair-mindedness with the rest 4
n u ~ t I "a o Al "