The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1919-01-31

Streeter Union Labor" received 148,-
600 votes, Cowdry Omitted Labor"
received less than 10000 votes.
In the same campaign Cleveland,
Democrat and Harrison, Republican,
each received more than 5,4O0,000
votes, and Fisk, Prohibitionist, re-
ceived $4,000 votes.
It is fair to say, however, that
neither Streeter nor Cowdry could
claim to directly represent organized
labor, for organized labor in this
country has never yet in national
sense nominated straight labor
ticket. Of course there have been
great changes in thirty years. The
labor movement is stronger today
than it was thirty years ago and al
labor party would cast more votes
because of the vast increase in the
membership of organized labor But
the fact remains that the vote of or
ganized labor could not be cast for
any party-not even a labor party.
There is no doubt that the power
full labor movement would be injured
by an effort to direct the political
votes of its membership. When we
attempt to exercise political powers
we shall weaken our economic power.
Economically we are agreed; politi-
cally, we are divided And when we
bring our political differences into
our economic union, we shall impair
our economic strength.
The unions have grown powerful
economically in the absence of par
tisan politics from their councils.
The condition of our wage earners is
better than the wage earners in any
other country on earth. Our pros
perity has grown under our economic
movement. We have more of the
comforts, and the pleasures of life
than the wage earners of all the rest
of the world put together.
1t is not labor party that we want,
but more labor unionism.
pa ~ pa - "a
MANLY'S SMOKE.
Speaking of Basil NJ Manley, who
succeeded Frank P. Walsh as chair
man of the War Labor Board, the
Cincinnati Post says:
Basil NJ. Manly, well known to read
ers of The Post before and during
the early stages of the war as an
expert writer on economies and labor
questions, and now one of the chair
men, with VIM H. Taft, of the War
Labor Board, has started something
At the Reconstruction Congress of
the National Popular Government
League in Washington a few days
ago, Manly flatly charged the big
New York harbor strike that the coun-
try has been reading about was insti-
gated and organized by the employ
ers themselves, not by the workers.
He said the War Labor Board had
evidence to show that it was stool
pigeons and private detectives, T"
planted by the boat owners among
labor organizations, who not only
urged the strike, but counseled the
men to violence and lawlessness.
This has brought storm of pro-
test from the New York Towboat Ex-
change, an employers organization,
against Manly taking part in the hear
ings now under way by the War La
Dor Board in connection with the con
troversy.
But Where there's smoke there's
fire" is an old saying. This method
of attempting to put labor organiza-
tions in bad odor on the part of un-
scrupulous and unpatriotic would-be
profiteers is an old gag; it has been
tried before, and it would not be sur
prising to learn that it really has been
tried again. Also, Manly has a record
as a careful investigator that is hard
to beat. 1t was he who, with Fran
els Heney, the famous special rep
resentative of the Federal Trade Com
mission, with which Manly was then
connected, secured much of the evil
dence in the rotton Chicago Packer
Trust scandal of last year. The big
packers howled about that evidence
until they were blue in the face, but
they were utterly unable to refute it.
These are serious charges that have
been made against the New York boat
owners-every bit as serious as any