The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-04-17
UNION LABoR'S SALVATION.


! The outlaw strike of switchmen is collapsing.
The railroads, the railway brotherhoods and the
government have Joined hands to crush the IL
legal movement and will be successful In their
iobJect The four railroad brotherhoods have
Issued an ultinatum to the strikers In which de-
Emand is made that they return to work at once;
the railroad managers have given notice OF a
time limit and the federal department OF JUS
Ince steps in and places under arrest twenty
five leaders In the nsurgent strike on the charge
that the men conspired to interfere with ship
5ments of food and other neceSsaries of life.
Il Preliminary to the governments action, de-
partment of justice investigators reported
that evidence IN their possession proves that
William Il. Foster, leader of the Inflated steel
strike, is prime mover behind the outlaw rail
way strike Attorney General Palmer has made
public evidence of plans prepared by Foster
and his adherents to disrupt the four great rail
way brotherhoods and to organize all rail work
crs into one union. The whole program, ac-
cording to Mr. Palmer, is one phase of the Rus
sian radicals designed at the ultimate capture
Of industry, the overthrow of the government
and the setting up of dictatorship like that
IN chaotic Russia Workers were being led I'M
Willingly into the trap set for them through
the Industrial Workers of the World and the
Communist Internationale, headed by Lenlne
md Trotsky.''
Now is the time for the American Federation
OF Labor 10 purge itself of radicals, socialists,
communists and bolshevists be they high Off
cials In local organizations or simply men IN the
ranks By so doing it viii recover the high re-
gard it once commanded in the view of the gem
leral public and in the estimation of employers
who are friendly to organized labor that is not
/ OF the revolutionary sort.
| 1t would appear as if unionism were splitting
| or ready to split into antagonlstlc radical and
conservative groups, just as the socialist party
split up In any event the official heads of or
ganized labor are no longer in control of it. An
element in their following mutinied, flouted
Iders, raised the black flag; and while the nlu-
timers will fail and be queled for time line
Iof cleavage has become apparent and the regu-
lar organizations will 40 longer have the de-
Ipendabe solidarity they did. Probably it
would be better for reasonable workers and for
the country as a whole If the radicals set up /
outlaw organizations of their own, following
their expulsion from membership in the con- /!
servatve Federation. Their influence within the /
unions which overbore at times the more con- (
servatve element led to many unsuitable
courses and to most of the strikes that failed. /
Organized labor conservatively led would be /
more prosperous and powerful, more sef-re- .
speeding, wiser to make agreements and more /
honorable in keeping them, after It's socialist ,
communist bolshevik element had gone off by /
itself There should be general cleaning out /
Of the spirit Of disruption in the labor unions, /
and now is the time to begin that work. /
More American ships are passing through
the Panama canal than ships of any other ma 1
ton British ships have held supremacy in I
numbers in use Of the canal, but now our own
vessels are one-third more numerous there. i
This is evidence to prove that our merchant
marine is active in promoting trade with South
America and with Asia, and our trade in these
two directions is at present most important 4
factor in maintaining our home industrial es-
Establishments. Il
Leavenworth, Kansas, shows a decrease in II
population, according to the census figures.
And here we thought the federal department of Il
Justice had sent large numbers of enemies of +
our country to increase the population Of Leav-
enworth Perhaps that is because we listened
to the department of justice.
81 do not know of leading democrat IN Ia
public life who believes it would be wise to r
nominate President Wilson for third term, - n
says Senator David l.. Walsh. But isn't Mr. Ii