Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1921-05-15
DUST IN THE PEOPLES EYES.

The labor leaders charge City Manager Gladding
with the statment that the discharge of the fire
men for refusing to dsunionize, the beginning
of an open-shop movement in Albuquerque
They further charge Mayor Connell with the
statement that winning the recall would make him
'the biggest in New Mexico"
We understand that both of these gentlemen
are FESTIVE under the restraint their friends
are impo1ing on thom. We informed that both
wish to make flat and emphatic denial of the
remarks attributed to them.
Tlie Journal does not believe for a moment
that either of them made the remark credited to
him Neither is supplemented yet and only a
fool would make such statements. The Journal
advised against making a denial We thought we
in it the wish of the labor leaders to make
the question of the veracity OF the city manager
and the mayor the storm-center in the recall cam
paign in an effort to get away from the inexor-
able logic of the real issue We felt that
denials would be at once met with affidavits
swearing to the statements having been made.
Experience has shown that affdavts the
most easily obtainable commodity in the market.
We viii wager doughnut- hole that we can, with
in twenty-four hours produce affidavit that the
moon is made of green cheese. Even honest men
misled by their ears their prejudces to
what someone said. The public may still expect the
affdavits Mt any time.
The Journal is indifferent as to whether or not
these men made the remarks attributed to them.
open-town issue if he tried. Mr. Connel is already
one of the biggest men in New Mexico, so we can
let it go at that.
Voters will be very foolish if they permit any
amount of sophistry or adroitness on the part of
the leaders to obscure the real issue. would
be silly to allow a campaign to revove around
the question of foolish remark credited to
one instead OF it's revolving around the actual
issue.
The question before the union people and
everybody else is whether the unions are to leave
their legitimate field of the economic protection of
members engaged in economic pursuits and go into
the political field and attempt to dominate the
police powers of the state and run the city hall
from the labor temple.
1t is probably true that there are enough
union men and women in Albuquerque to do this
for a time if they all saw it that way and voted
soidy. But they will not. There is no absence of
brains among union people They the terrible
ultimate effect labor of allowing the unions to
get into machine politics.
The labor leaders are human like the rest of
us. If they grab political power they
prone to do so. If they succeed, it will be the
beginning of the end of a unionism which
mands the respect and sympathy of non-union
people in Albuquerque.
Political control has ruined every group of
labor leaders who have attempted it and has
brought reproach the unions. 4
Political power to aid in the redress of grev-
ances is one thing. The unions have that by sheer
force of numbers Political control of the machin-
cry of government by the unions is quite another
matter 1t always proves disastrous The union
men and women will see to it that this does not
happen in Albuquerque.