Evening star., 1920-01-06
BY RAY sTANNAKD BAKER.

In two former articles | endeavored
to exhibit the present industrial sit
uation in America it looks, first
from above to the man who pays the
wages. and. second, from below. to
the men who receive them.
We may now inquire into the causes
of this unrest. again using the type
city of Gary. Ind, as the explanatory
illustration.
We are fortunate in having the is
sue made very clear for US. in this
case. by the leaders upon both sides
of the controversy.
Judge Gary tells US with conviction
that the great ma jority of his work
ers We're contented; that they wanted
no strike and no union, but that they
were melted and intimidated by out
side agitators'' and .'revolutionaries:
He says that alien elements with rad
ical beliefs were largely instrumental
| in causing the trouble.
You think" asks Senator Kenyon,
at the investigation, that this for
eign element is precipitating the
strike. do you not?'
Il do" responded Judge Gary.
My Gompers. upon his part. is eQual-
ly clear. He tells us that the work
ers were not contented: that they
were compelled to work unnecessarily
long hours; that they were not al
lowed to organize or to have any
voice in the determination of the
conditions under which they live;
that the workers were not intimida led
by outside agitators" or "revolu
tionaries,' but suppressed by the en-
ployerS.
Outside-Or Inside.
Here then, is the very heart of the
controversy. Judge Gary thinks that
the trouble comes from outside his
steel plants and steel towns: Mr..
Gompers thinks the trouble is inside
BILE is imported into Gary from Wash
ington, where the American Fedora
tion of Labor has it's headquarters. or
from Russia. Mr.. Gompers thinks the
trouble is in Gary itself.
The remedies suggested follow hard
upon the convictions of each group
Judge Gary-and to a large extent
the entire employer class in America
believe that if somehow these out.
side agitatorS" "revolutionarieS.
"alien disturbers" could be squelched
all the trouble would speedily disap-
pear. SO we see just now in America
a number of extraordinary applica-
tions of this cure. Judge Gary him
self quite logically from his point
of view refuses to confer with out
Foster and others. In Pennsylvania
the constabulary put them in jail: re-
fuse to let them hold meetings Upon
the belief that the ideas that are dis
turbing industry come in from the
Russia especially-they
raid private homes and halls at Gary.
and according to a lieutenant of the
intelligence department of the United
States Army. take away some tons OF
radical literature. And now they are
proceeding to still more drastic meas
ures At the Senate investigation SEN
of
tenant of intelligence who investi-
gated the reds of Gary this ques-
ton: ;,
Senator Smith: If we shipped all
the alien agitators and organizers out
of the country
Lieut.. Van Buren Gnterposing):
There would be no more trouble at
all
We are beginning literally to prac-
tice this policy, which seems so easy
a solution to Senator Smith and Lieut..
Van Buren, Already the American
ship Buford, guarded aboard by SOL
diers and accompanied at sea by a
naval escort, is taking some 200 OF
these alien agitators away from
America with the purpose OF return
ing them to the lands from when
they got their ideas.
This policy of meeting the unrest
finds a cruder echo-and yet fa-
miliar one. l have heard it often re-
Gently among ordinary comfortable
people: "If a few of these agitators
and reds were taken out and shot
we'd soon get rid of the trouble.
Now the logic of these remedies is
sound. If the unrest is
caused by outside agitators and by
alien revolutionarieS as Judge Gary
asserts, then if you remove the agi-
tators, seize and destroy the litera-
ture containing the ideas and pre-
vent meetings in which they are aired.