Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-09-24
RED CONTROL Is MENAClNG
THE FEDERATION OF LABOR
Foster, Who Inspired the Steel Strike, Is
Not Trades Unionlst, but a Props
gandist Of Social Revolution


ssndist Of Social Revolution
The wages system must be abolished.
The thieves at present in control Of the
industries must be stripped OF their loot.
This social reorganization will nc a rcvOlu-
ton.
THAT cheerful sentence is from re-
cent bloodhound, of course, in fam
ing rcd-which bears the name Of Will
liam Z. Foster as co-author with another
and less conspicuous visionary.
Mr.. Foster is the man who has been
organizing the steel and iron workers
under the auspices of the Federation of
Labor. lie is presumed to be the ami
mating genius behind the present strike
Yet his book, issued just before he went
into the Pennsylvania steel country as an
organizer, is a bitter and contemptuous
tirade against the whole principle of
trades unionsm as it is accepted in
America. To him trades unonism is
"diotic" and "futilc.'
The authors Of the rcd book accept
the Federation of Labor. But they ac-
cept it only temporarily as an instrument
which they recommend as one that may
be used to bring about bolshcvism and
the social overthrow for which they are
fanatically hoping.
If, at the hearing which the Senate
wisely ordered yesterday MIR. Foster is
properly questioned, the country at large
may be permitted to get new insight
into the actual origin and purpose Of the
recent strike order.
But it is for the intelligent rank and
file of the Federation of Labor itself
that astonishment seemingly is in store.
The prestige of the organization has
been relied upon in this instance for the
development of a scheme of labor con-
troll that is frankly revolutionary, avow-
edly opposed to the existing order of
government and cheerfully dependent
For Mr.. Foster is fervid advocate
of yndicalsm-which is anarchy in an
organized form. The method of con-
quest which he has been recommending to
dissatisfied labor recommends sabotage,
crime and every conceivable method that
may be applied to bring about indus
trial paralysis. The aim of this propa-
ganda is the formal denial of property
rights and state authority and Control
by the proletariat."
A year or two ago the man who ap-
pears to have inspired the steel workers
in the present instance was suggesting
ardently in print that workers in America
could best obtain a stranglehold on So
ciety by tightly organizing all men in
the basic industries in order that they
might stop transportation and the pro-
duction of essential commodities when
ever they wero ready to assert their
right to rule the nation.
If the Senate will look into the more
recent literature of American radicals il
will perhaps be able to perceive the ac-
tual motive which caused the leaders of
the steel mems organization to refuse the
Presidents request for postponement
of the strike order in order to permit a
review of the disputed issues by the
coming industrial conference.
Many Of the demands made by the stee
workers representatives were unfair
Some of the conditions which they pro.
posed were impossible. From the view,
point of Mr.. Fitzpatrick and Mr.. Foster
a strike seemed more desirable than ar
| adjustment.
Wages have been good in the stee,
industry. What the strike leaders seem
to have desired was to create among
| their followers a sense of oppression anc
the dynamic sentimentalism such as otter
bind those who are drawn together il
a common cause. By this means the
leaders hoped, apparently, to quicken the
slow work of their organizers.
The strike, so far as it has progressed
is for the most part demonstration BY
foreign-born workers. 1t was planned t
be national crisis. Instead it has be
come a crisis for the Federation of Labor
which, first in Boston and now in tn,
steel industry, finds its name and in
fuence used to sustain the half-mac
theories that left the stupendous ruin il
Russia and poverty and despair over hal
of Europe to prove their crazy futility.
The stupidity and cruelty of the oil,