Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-09-16
THE RIGHT TO STRIKE
HAS LIMITATIONS
Policemen Have Not That Right, and It Is
Likely to Be Denied to
Railroad Men

lGltt all ISSut "IllNIl ~ li''N W ~
settled before there can be any pcrma-
ncnt industrial and social peace. That
issue involves the restriction of the right
to strike in certain cmploymcnts.
The goal toward which labor unioniSm
is striving is the organization Of every
| industry and every employment, includ-
ing the police and fire forces of the
/ cities, and the direction of these men by
a central committee. No general nation
wide strike III all industries has yet been
! ordered but it has been talked about and
| the threat Of it has been held over the
heads of employers and the public. But
! the industries are not yet organized in
sufficient numbers to make such a strike
successful if called.
| All the evidence indicates that the
! more radical labor leaders are merely
waiting until they have unjonizcd the
| men in all trades before attempting to
use this terrible weapon. Then when the
men in one trade demand higher wages
and shorter working day the men in all
other trades will be called or to strike
in sympathy and hold the whole country
by the throat until the demand is granted.
1t is necessary that the police forces
should be unonized if the plan is to
succeed. The police in thirty-seven
cities, including Boston and Washington,
have already formed unions affiliated
with the American Federation Of Labor
The Boston police struck for the recog
milton of their union, and the members
Of other unions are considering a SYM
pathetic strike. In view of this hard
fact the statement that the police unions
will not strike becomes mere camoufage
intended to deceive the public until the
unionzaton of the police throughout the
nation is completed. Then the great
mass of ununionized people will be at the
mercy of the unions
| One does not have to think very far
! into this subject before it dawns upon
| him that this would be concerted effort
| to set up government within the United
| States intended to assert its superiority
! to the government of the nation and the
governments of the states. 1t would be
a class government, organized on the
theory that its rights were superior to
! those of every other group of citizens and
| to a general strike. tying up all indus
| try and all transportation systems ard
paralyzing the police power, were justi
fable means to be employed for enforc-
ing its demands.
The rest of us must decide whether we
like this sort of thing and are going to
consent to it. Events in Boston indicate
that that city does not intend to consent
to the proposition that its policemen can
mutiny and desert their posts.
Mr.. GomperS, who has been asking that
the men be taken back on the force and
that the issue remain in abeyanCe until
after the Presidents industrial confer
ence in Washington early next month,
seems to misunderstood the situation.
The governor of Massachusetts and the
Boston police commissioner have decided
that the policemen are not mere strikers,
but that they are deserterS and that they
have surrendered their offices and that
their places are vacant.
These Ievel-headed public officials are
now filling the vacancies as fast as posi-
bic.
They do not intend that the preserva-
ton of the peace and the protection of
public and private property shall be in
the hands of men who will take an oath to
obey the constitution and the laws and to
submit to the orders of their superior
officers and then violate that oath and
turn the city over to the mercies Of the
vicious elements of the community.
The crime of these men is the same in
kind as that of regiment on the French
front should it have withdrawn from the
trenches and let the Germans through
because it did not like the Orders of its
colonel
The leaders in such mutiny would
have been shot at dawn and the follow
ers would have been punished to the last
man.
1t is charitable to assume that the
Boston policemen did not realize what
they were doing. They were told that
they were mere employees like the clerks
in the tax collectors office. But they
were not mere employees. They were
sworn officers of the government. Their
sole allegiance was due to the govern
ment and when they tried to divide their
| allegiance between the government and
the American Federation of Labor they
made a fatal mistake.
If we are to have orderly government
the right of a police force to affiliate
itself with any outside organization must
be denied to it, just as the right of an
army to divide its allegiance between
two nations must he denied. In the case
of an army such thing is unthinkable
1t ought to be equally unthinkable in the
case of police force. And the right tc
strike cannot be admitted any more thar
the right of an army to mutiny can be
palliated.
|. 1t is likely that before this matter is