The Connecticut labor press., 1920-11-20
COAL BROTHERS
 SUDDENLY SIT UP 1.
 AND TAKE NOTICE
Charles M. Kelley in Weekly Plumb Plan Letter Reviews
 General Conditions Forcefully.
LABOR IS IN PERIL
Recent Election Aid to Open Shop" Movement-Much Per
 nicious Legislation Planned.
By CHARLES M. KELLEY.

When two staid, conservative repub-
 lican senators-Calder and Edge-re-
 gently announced that they were exas-
 perated by the prohteering greed of coal
 operators and spectators and would
 move for the standardization of the
 mining industry when Congress re-
 conyenes on December G. unless, mean
 time, the industry purges itself of in
 human practices, they started a furry
 in reactionary circles that temporarily
 overshadows all other domestic ques-
 tions
 There is a tendency on the part of
 many of those who are robbing the
 people to believe these lawmakers real-
 ly meant what they said and are in
 earnest in their determination to do
 something for long-harassed consum-
 CTS. Whether they were blufhng or not
 IS of slight consequence. The signih- cance thai inheres in their pronounce
 ment Is that 1t comedies the inadequacy
 of securing by law or administration
 that protection which the public needs
 and must have if grave perils are to be
 averted.
 Having admitted so much, the 1ogi-
 cal next step was to accept as the only
 true solution of industrial oppression
 rigid government regulation, approxi-
 mating standardization of the coal in-
 dustry. In other words, these arch de- lenders of privilege are forced by cir
 cumstances they cannot control to con cede that after all is said and done the people will be helpless and hopeless just as long as essential basic industries are dominated by individuals who have only a proht-taking interest III them.
 When the nation faced the emergency of winning a war 1t was necessary to control prices and production. Nothing was gained by appeals to the patriotism of the proflteers. The government Hse- cured from the great mass of citizens prompt, willing and effective co-opera- ton, but not from the coal operators and purveyers of coal. They were checked in their mad pursuit of profits by a maximum price for their product. Just as soon as price control was re- faxed there was resumed an orgy of prohteering that continues to this day, m face of the nose-pulling of the at torney general and vague threats that never materia1ized. Iron bars do not a prison make for coal barons. They are not susceptible to ordinary methods of regulation or to the humanitarian instincts that control their countrymen. Senators Edge and Calder realize this and declare that they are ready to go just as far as the Constitution will per init i'll regulating the industry, and they offer their remedy after all other efforts at reconstruction had ended disastrous ly.
 It is scarcely possible that anything so drastic will be attempted, or, If at tempted, that 1t vii be consummated. The government as now constituted has little interest in the fate of the masses. Its concern is that private exploiting business shall be protected, and there will be little if any interference with profits, no matter how large But 1t does no harm to talk about these mat ters. Sooner or later there will be a government that will take a contrary view, and discussion will hasten its coming. When an earnest effort IS made to check the criminal practices of the coal people 1t will take the form of the threat made by those eminently conservatives who in their blind rage stumbled upon the only real, abiding solution of a yexing problem.
 Leaders of organized labor are not to the real peril that faces them. They know that the recent cleo ton has added tremendous impetus to the "open shop" movement, and they also realize that they are about to meet the most determined effort ever made to prevent collective action on the part of producers.
 Labor haters are demanding the re- peal of the labor provision of the Clayton antitrust law, the federal in of trade unions and the outlawing of agreements between em- oloyers and employees. The thought back of these demands is to deprive the workers of their only effective weapon, the strike. No employer, no matter how brutal and calloused, ob- ects to trade unions that are guaranteed not to strike against wrongs. The strike Is the thing that the Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturers are after, and in their pur- suit they have commanded the sym Dathy and support of large section of the public that should know better.
 It is reliably reported that one of the bills to appear in Congress will make it unlawful for an employer to contract with his men by making 1t a to agree upon closed shop | That will meet in full the demands of | open shop advocates. So much accom- l ,lished, the rest will be easy. Organ zed labor is effective only when there S solidarity. In open shops there Is | invariably such rank discrimination | oracticed as between union and non 1nion workers that 1t is but a matter | ,f time until card men are forced to | withdraw from their craft unions in | 
 Federal incorporation of trade unions las long been advocated by the Ma ional Chamber of Commerce. It sees II his scheme an opportunity to take he money of the unions With con- rol of the courts fairly complete, an law would be very use ul in the down-the-line attack upon rade unions.
 The repeal of the antitrust immun- ty of the Clayton act would make the injunction a useful and never failing weapon in labor disputes. There are udges who are willing to overlook this wrung from an unwilling ongress, but the majority of jurists airly construe its provisions. Its re- cal would remove all doubt and trade