The evening herald. [volume] (Albuquerque, New Mexico) 1914-1922, 1920-07-10
A FOR RADICAL
LABOR LEADERSHIP

kE 0ST of the troubles of organized labor and most of the troubles
lVI into which organized workers have dragged the country have
been due to unwise leadership a too great power suddenly
thrust into the hands of men unused to exercising great power or
authority over other men; mel without the training or the vision
that guards against dizziness in high position and the grOgginess
that seems TO go with autOcratc power. Capital had its period Of too
great power in our country. II verged upon autocracy and its fall
brought the long train of disastrous consequences in the way of I'M
wise restrictions and socialistic trends from which the nation will
not recover fully for years to come. Good also has arisen from the
wreck of the autocracy of capital.
Has labor leadership reached its pinnacle of power in this coun.
Try, and is a time of reckoning at hand for misleading agitators and
a leadership made dizzy by too much authority suddenly attained
and unwiscly exercised
This is the burden of an article by b. c. Forbes in a recent issue
of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, which is reproduced on this page
today. The Forbes article is a grave Indictment of the labor leader
ship of today which in the words of Samuel Gompcrs, who ought and
who used TO know better, is now speaking in mandatory terms"
Here in New Mexico we have felt no more than the rcAexes of the
labor troubles of the past two years; their force sOftcned by distance.
We are feeling IL most forcefully now in the indirect effect of the
slowing down of industry upon The wool market a reflex which has
cost the wool producing industry Of this state it's market for the
present season, which has frightened money throughout the state and
as a direct result, has also slowed down business, industry, building.
progress and prosperity; how seriously we are yet to ascertain. But
directly we have been all but free of what the industrial centers know
as labor troubles and labor agitation. Workers in Albuquerque, for
instance, are in the large majority property owners and taxpayine
citizens, sober minded men who n as keenly interested in the prog
ress OF our city and the general welfare as are any other class Of cit
liens. This has been illustrated in the stand taken by the majority
Of organized workers here in every contest that has come to a crisis
including the most recent controversy brought about by the painters
union. There has been a desire to he fair; to carry on; TO confer and
get together. Two mr. at the most three agitat0rs Of the more radical
type have been unable to swing the majority into radical courses
To date we have been fortunate and we have been free of the for
ein agitator and the red whose influence has been o disastrous east
of the Mississippi
It may be that the slowing down Of industry will awaken the
rank and file of labor in the industrial centers to the need off reck.
oning with its more radical leadership. Certainly Forbes is right
when he says that at no time, for any continued period, can ten per
cent of Americans, whoever they may be, speak Gin mandatory
terms 10 the other 90 per cent, and get away with II.