The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1921-09-02


posing of fake co-operatives.
The Keller taxation bills, introduced
as part of the program offered by
some of the railroad organizations,
after consultation with the Peoples
Reconstruction League at Washington,
D. c., were. endorsed. They provide
for land tax with single tax feat
ures, continuance of the present in
come tax and excess profits taxes and
a steeply graduated inheritance tax
until the war is paid for. The resolu-
tion also denounced the sales-turnover
taxes proposed by big business.
By a unanimous vote the conven-
tion expressed endorsement of the
union workers of Kansas who are
seeking to render the industrial court
law of that state imperative. The
resolution was introduced by John
Walker, president of the Illinois Fed
Grafton of Labor.
The convention adopted resolution
extending aid to the unions of Mis-
souri, who are trying to prevent re-
peal of the workmen's compensation
act in that state, endorsed the Ohio
workmen's compensation law as mo-
del for all states and recommended
the enactment of the Jones' Fitzgerald
bill for workmen's compensation in
the District of Columbia.
Help for Tom Mooney
A resolution appropriating $500 to
be used in Investigations now being
conducted in behalf of Tom Mooney,
the San Francisco labor leader who is
serving a life term in states prison
in California on what is admitted to
have been perjured testimony, was
amended by the committee on resolu-
tions to an instruction that the ex-
ecutive council do all in its power to
secure new trial or pardon for
Mooney, and that all international
unions be called upon to take similar
action, and in its amended form was
adopted without dissent.
The proposal that labor be exempt
ed from the operation of the Sherman
antitrust law was referred to the ex-
ecutive council to consider it in con-
junction with the entire legislative
program of the A. F. of L.
Three resolutions providing for the
establishment of A. F. of L. banks in
all the large cities of the country
were not concurred in by the conven-
ton, but the executive council was
directed to have made survey of Gre
dts and finances with a view to hav-
ing the proxy voting power of the
workers in mutual insurance compan-
les modified to be used in behalf of
the workers.
The convention went on record as
opposed to compulsory military train
ing and in favor of the equalization of
wages for all crafts on the railroads
of the country. A proposal that
strike insurance department of the A.
F. of L. be established was voted
down, with instructions to the exec
utive council to ask for congression-
al investigation of the strike insur-
ance now being offered by old line
insurance companies. This investi-
cation is expected to expose the sys-
TEN Of industrial espionage now op-
Grated throughout the United States.
Two of the resolutions setting forth
part of the program of the Peoples
Reconstruction League were adopted
These were for thoroughgoing con-
troll of the packing industry by the
federal government and to limit the
spread" of interest charged by the
federal reserve system banks over the
interest paid by the banks on money
borrowed from the reserve and loaned
out again.
North Dakota Bonds
The federation voted to send to all
affiliated bodies the resolution asking
for Investment of union funds in
bonds of the state-owned activities of
North Dakota, with request to in
vestigate the merits of the bonds.
Other action of the convention in
cluded adoption Of the Ladies Gar
ment Workers resolution demanding
reform to cause the courts to quit
fighting labor, recommendation of
liberization of workmen's compensa-
tion for federal employees and COM
mendation of the utterances of the
church organizations, Catholic, Pro-
testant and Jewish, which have made
liberal utterances on industrial con-
ditions.
War Referendum Defeated
A proposal that the federation take
steps to wrest from congress the
power to declare war and make de-
claration of war impossible without a
referendum vote was rejected. The
question went to a roll call and the
vote was 21,742 against war only by
referendum and 144,530 for the refer
endum
The resolution introduced by S. FL.
Gardner, delegate of the Central
Labor Union, of Cleburne, Texas,
provided not only for referendum on