Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-11-18

| as the invisible government, the sway
| of those financial conspirators who
| sought to dominate the nation. That
cabal OF cunning and avarice has
been overthrOwn. But another invis-
iblc empire has been established, as
| evil and dangerous as that of the de-
! throned autocracy Of wealth. This
new assailant of ordered liberty and
American institutions is the close and
| closed corporation of those men who
have made themselves masters of
| labor unions.
"Orsanized capital and organized
| labor alike can be made useful to all
men and helpful to the Republic; but
neither shall be permitted to Cypress
any man, woman or child, or to gov
| ern the American people.
"The methods by which the Adam
! son law was forced on the statute
books raised an issue as vital and
| basic as that which brought on the
Civil War-indeed the Adamson law
issue went to the very existence of
government itself.
when organizations, by threat to
strange the nation, can dictate laws
for their own advantage at the ex-
pense of all the people, then regular
government by all for the good of all
is annihilated: and, in place of it is
substituted the cratic despotsm of
particular groups for their special
purposes to the injury of the country
as whole.
'At all cost. the Adamson- law is
sue should have been fought out to
the finish the moment it appeared.
Sooner or later it must be settled and
| every days delay will make matters
worse in the end. Differences over
mere questions of policy can be COM
promised: usually they ought to be
compromised. But differences over
elemental principles cannot be COM
promised.
"The ultimatus delivered to the
Government by labor despots was
obeyed and the Adamson law enacted
in the exact form ordered and at the
exact time ordered. 1t was the most
shameful and humiliating event in
the American history. From it have
come many of the industrial plaques
with which. since then, the nation has
been and is afflicted.
1.-THE next blow at the nations
transportation system was dealt by
the Government itself. We went to
war 'shamefully unprepared; and, in
storm of confusion, excitement and
panic, the railways. gravely weak
ened financially but with operating
forces stil regemented although res
tive, were taken from their harassed
and distracted owners and run by the
National Administration.
"Then followed that saturnalia of
Encouragement which left those
properties bound and gagged by
agreements, regulations and working
rules.
Immediate action is vital. Most
rates must come down, and especially
and farthest those on basic-necessi-
ties like fuel and foodstuffs: and,
therefore, since wages and rates arc
inseparable, wages must also come
down.
"Our whole economic system has
been inflated to the bursting point
and general deflation was and is in
dispensable. The farmers have de-
flated, business men have debated,
most other labor has debated or is
debating: and railroad labor must
undergo that common, universal and
necessary process-indeed labor in
fiation In the production of the abso-
lutte necessities of human life such as
coal, housing, food and transporta-
ton. Is one Of the principal elements
In the high cost of living: and normal