Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1921-03-11
and obtain their guaranteed


rights"
Calling attention to the reference
by Professor w. q. Ripley, introduce
ing him to the contribution Of the
American Federation of Labor in
winning the war, President Gompers
said the menace of being over-run by
a political autocracy and all that it
meant had been defeated and the
workers were not now going to sub
NIT to an industrial autocracy.
ut is of great interest" the speak,
er remarked in discussing the open
shop movement, ito find employers,
or many of them, organized in asso-
Citations and spending large sums for
the protection of employees in their
freedom.
II submit for your thought whether
the National Association of Manu-
facturers, the National Erectors
Association, the Chambers of Com
merce which have launched the cam
paign, conducting it with advertising,
page after page, against the closed
shop. are seeking to protect en-
ployes in their right not to join a
union.
1.-The fact of the matter is that
there are still living among en-
ployers typical old Bourbons; those
who forget nothing because they
have learned nothing. There are
some of these who still hold the
hope that the time is coming when
there will be re-established a condi-
NJ
class of toilers of the land.
THE time when the worker was
represented as man with a hoe,
bent back and receding forehead had
passed and the hostile employers
should know that Americas en-
ployes now stand erect, demanding
justice and they will be satisfied with
nothing but justice. Certain inalien-
able rights are guaranteed to him by
the constitution. Aspiration is one
of these that comes under the pur-
suit of happiness: aspiration for
more and something better. We
want more. I wonder if there is
any hostile employer who does not
want more? If understand the
strength of the labor movement
Alright, it wants more and more until
the full measure of justice is re-
ceived for it's service"
The labor leader turned to discus
sion of strikes saying that like the
poor, they are always with us, and
continued:
THE effort now being made by
some to make strikes per Sc unlawful
will fail. To make the cessation Of
work a crime will react on the auth
ors of such proposition and do more
to shake the faith of the people in
the freedom of our institutions than
aught else" =
He reviewed what he said had been
the struggle of workers through the
centuries against compulsory labor,
said 1t had cost millions of lives and
millions in money in our own Civil
war, and added: 4
Now come men who want to drive
the workers again into involuntary
servitude.. The law as it now exists
in Kansas is a step further toward
compulsory labor.
The Esch- Cummins railroad law"
ne said, required that men should do
everything possible to see to 1t that
service should not be interrupted in
any way" But no penalty. was pro-
vided for the section because, and he
quoted a railroad lobbyist for what
he advanced as the reason: 1T was
better to have no penalty provided,
because with writs of injunction is
sued only when there Is no adequate
remedy available at law commission
OF penalty left no adequate remedy
at law and it was found easier to con-
Wet for violations Of injunctions than
Tor violations of law"
The enemies of labor, consciously
or unconsciously, are doing more to
create radicalism in the country team
any other body"