Newark leader. ([Newark, Ohio]) 1917-1946, 1920-06-18
MR.. GOMPERS AND BANKING
AND CREDIT

In recent announcement Mr.. Com
pers declares that the control of
banking and credit must be socialized.
He asks that candidates for office be
pledged to bring this reform about.
This demand of Mr.. Gompers is
far reaching. 1t is full of possibilities
to labor. If credit were socialized
and dedicated to the we'll being of the
world there would be a revolution in
society.
Why is it that credit is so i'm
portant? Why should it be socialized
and placed under public control? Let
US see?
(1) Labor produces all of the wealth
of America. 1t produces it in the
factory, in the mill, in the mine and
on the farm. Every athom Of wealth
is produced by human labor, for the
most part it is produced by the &c.
100000 manual workers in the country
(2) Labor also contributes the
brains to industry. Labor really runs
the railroads, it runs the mines, the
steel mills and the factories. Were
it not for the high degree of intelli-
gence which labor possesses, industry
would come to a standstlll. The
bankers in Wall Street do not under
stand railroading. They do not un-
derstand engineering. The most that
can be said of them is that they un-
derstand accounting; the adding up
of profit and loss. 1t is the intelli
gence, the skill, the ability of labor
that keeps the industrial world NOV
ing and producing. Labor furnishes
not only the manual effort; labor
furnishes the intellectual ability as
we'll.
(3) Having produced all the wealth,
labor gives up control of it. Stupid
ly, it seems to US, labor gives up
everything it produces the moment it
produces it. 1t turns it over to men
who do little or no productive labor,
who contribute little to industrial
processes, who are interested not in
increasing the amount of wealth, but
in taking as much of it as possible
for themselves. Labor feeds, clothes
and houses the world, and then passes
all this wealt'- over to another class.
(4) How is this dom. Why do we
have this anomalous condition? Why
one class do all the labor and another
class get all the wealth? This is the
enigma of modern society. 1t is an
enigma which labor must solve. La
Dor must find out why it is that the
advances of civilization pass by its
door and leave millions of people in
shacks and on the poverty line all the
time.
(5) The reason is to be found in
private control of banking and credit
and in the private ownership of land
and the resources of the earth. The
control of the banks and the credit
which they extend to some people and
not to other people explains why some
people secure control of the wealth
of the world. 1t is the banks that are
primarily responsible for the fact that
2 per cent of our population owns 60
per cent of our wealth.
co. Mr.. Gompers has done signal
service in carrying the fight to the
citadel of privilege and capitalism.
He has made US think about this sub
ject, and in time labor will work out
a program of it's own for the control
of credit, and through the control of
credit of the wealth which labor pro-
duces. 1t must be so. 1t cannot be
possible that society makes 80 per
cent of the people mere workers and
a mere handful of the people the re-
cipients of the wealth that 80 per cent
of the people produce.
The control of credit is one of the
next big tasks of labor. 1t, with
transportation, and the control of our
natural resources, are the big prob
lens of tomorrow-From Labor.