Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-09-18
American Lubor's Awakening
Washington Correspondence London Times.

great country that has come OUT OF the war
richer than she was when she went into it,
and with her industrial fabric fundamentally
unimpared Her resources are, according to
the standards of western Europe, but halt de-
veloped. She may no longer have at her dis
posal great virgin territories, the colonization
of which so eased economic. reconstruction
after the civil war. But she still has unlimited
scope for intensive development in both the
industrial and agricultural fields. Foreign mar
kets are not yet for her the utterly vital neces-
sity that they are for us. She can afford to
daily with her problems in a way which it
would be suicide for us to initiate. Why is it,
then, that there is so much anxiety about the
| future, and that the excuses of the extremists
are not discounted as froth that will disappear
| of their own accord as soon as things settle
down?
| The chief reason for anxiety is the lever
which it is soon clear labor will have for the
| enforcement of any demands it likes to make.
! 1t is feared that what with the need OF attract
| ing to its side the radical wing of the working
class world, the present leaders OF organized
labor may, especially if employers persist in
their pre-war obscurantism, become consider.
ably more advanced than they now are. In
the old days the chief reason why capital could
be frankly and brutally selfish the exist
| ence of vast floating proletariat of low-class
immigrants. Not only did these men make
invaluable strike breakers but their amorph-
BUSINESS rendered almost Impossible effective
organization of fighting unions.
| For years past the Federation of Labor has
pressed for curtaiment of free immigration,
| which for the decade preceding 1914 averaged
nearly a million annually. The war has already
! given it good deal of what it wanted in this
the armistice there has been remarkable
exodus of alien working men. The figures are
| as follows:
| November ..... s,2S5 March ...... .21774
| December ..l 1900 April 2s77S
February .....16.s54 June .......... 2S, 500
| The reasons assigned for the exodus range
all the way from the call of nascent nationality
| to the fight of wine drinkers from the pail of
| prohibition 1t is estimated by the Department
of Labor that some 100000 are preparing to
depart. Social reformers rejoice at the pros
! pect as much as union organizers. They see
| the American melting pot purged of some of its
most difficult alloy, for of the foreigners within
the gate it has been calculated that some 2000-
| 600 cannot speak and some 100000 cannot
| read English; and there is no doubt that among
them the seeds of anarchy find fertile Judgment
| But this does not comfort employers. Nor
does the possibility that the prospective size
and permanence of the movement has been over
estimated. All they see is that, whereas before
the the regular influx of nearly 100000
| immigrants year gave them none too many
hands, they are noW when the need for in
creased production is on every ones lips
threatened by a very tight labor market.
Nor is the exodus their only trouble. There
is good prospect that even if natural causes
| do not keep it suspended, congress may pass
| laws making immigration very difficult for
some years to come. Its experiences with the
| hyphenated during the war, and now with the
| foreign agitator, has inclined American public
opinion to ettison the old idea that it was one
of the functions of American democracy to
| offer an asylum to the doWntrodden of all races
The prospect is not for employers reassur-
ing one. There is not only almost a certainty
of shortage of hands, but there is vista OF
| demands for wages that may easily become un-
economically high and for hours that may be-
come uneconomically short. Ft>t as said above
| there is fear that organized labor may grow
more exigent as it grows stronger. In past
years Mr.. Gompers has sometimes had to make
probably have shrunk from had he been the
autocrat of his class Never has that extremism
been stronger than it is
do not allude only to the activity of law
less extremists such as the so-called bolshevists
1 and the Industrial Workers of the World. They
are disquieting but it is difficult to think that
in this new, clean minded, and spacious coun-
| try the unsavory doctrines which inspire them
will get really far, especially if the influx of I'M
educated foreigners is to become more or less
stopped.
But between them and the followers of the
conservative trade unonsts there stands an
important radical contingent of genuine labor.
Some of its strength comes from within the
ranks of the Federation of Labor; some of it
from unions which often, because of their ad
vanced tendencies, are now affiliated to the
| federation
The chief, or at least the most interesting
| manifestation of this labor radca1ism is at
present the movement for the formation of
separate labor party. Mr.. Gompers has al
| ways frowned upon the movement. He and his
! he1 hat he in
directly by Judicous pressure upon parties and
candidates than by direct interference in
politics.
As result there is no labor party in the
United States But the nuclei for one are
springing up: Local labor bodies are organiz-
certain movement for political organization
within the Federation of Labor, and sundry of
the big independent associations like the rail-
way brotherhoods have been nibbling at the
!. idea. Some of the political programs thus pro-
duced reveal in Illuminating way the radical
ism with which Mr.. Gompers, the one hand,
| cope.
What follows is the platform recently built
at Cleveland by number of Ohio labor bodies
naturalization of railways, telephones, mer-
camille marine, and mines; universal eight-hour
| day, with shorter hours where there is unem-
ployment; cooperative management of indus
| try by workers and employers; limitation of
| profits to per cent. surplus to be added to
wages; police protection for pickets and strik-
ers: and municipal ownership of public utilities.
! With this movement must be taken the more
agrarian radcalism of the middle west. as rep
resented by the Nonpartisan league. 1t is the
custom of politicians to sneer at the league.
1t managed, nevertheless, to carry referendum
recently in North Dakota putting into operation
a very considerable measure of state socialism,
I,rc efaA1 of cf,{a all