The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1922-05-05
SUPERIOR PERSON. THEORY
AND STATE CONTROL OPPOSITION ON THE PART OF ORG
lied TOILERS AROUSES IRE OF GARYIZED NEWSPAPER
EDITORS TO HIGH PITCH
Refuse See the Difference Between Regulating Regu
ing Group of Workers Organized IN a Trade Union

Garyized newspaper editors are fu-
rious because President Gompers told
Mr.. Samuel Untermyer, counsel for
the Lockwood committee, in New York
city, that courts are invariably on the
side of capitalists and that organized
workers will resist state regulation.
These editors are at least logical in
their frenzy-they refuse to accept
the modern ideal that labor is not
a commodity
They are imbued with the world-old
theory that workers are of inferior
mold; that their wages must be set by
superior persons and that the state
may shower It's legalistic blessings on
the men and women of toll, while
other groups of citizens are encourag-
ed to shun state connections
These editors refuse, for instance,
to see the difference between regulat-
ing railroad and regulating a group
of workers, organized in trade union
They refuse to see that in the case
of the railroad the personal liberty of
stockholders or managers is never in
terfered with, but the personal liberty
of trade unionists is
The railroad manager may be order
ed to lower rates, but he is never
told, as are workers, that he and his
associates must submit to the state a
list of their necessities and they must
labor under conditions set by state
machinery
1t may be said that the railroad
manager has no right to stop serving
the public by ceasing to run trains,
and that is all the public asks of labor.
OF course, the railroad manager has
no right to stop serving the public
His railroad was given corporate life
with the distinct understanding that
it would serve the public That is the
major reason for the railroads cor
porate existence, though this fact has
been overlooked by looting financiers
and their defenders who demand re-
turns on water"
To say that the regulation of rail
road or other corporation justifies
state regulation of human beings is
to place workers in the chattel slave
af ha
brazenly profess their superior per-
son" faith.
Labor agrees that strikes are no So
luton for the labor problem, but they
are far preferable to state edict or
court command that to quit work is
criminal. The public's convenience is
nothing compared with this debase-
ment of American manhood that or
ganized labor will resist to the utmost.
Recent labor injunctions, recent
anti labor decisions of the highest
courts in the land, and Federal Judge
Orr's recent refusal to sign citizenship
papers for alien mine workers in the
Pittsburgh district while they are on
strike sustain President Gompers'
fear of the courts when the relations
of labor and capital are an issue.
Trade unionists do not deny that
wrong practices have associated with
their movement, many of which, let it
be understood, have been developed by
employers, who assume virtuous
pose.
But in attempting to remedy these
conditions organized workers will not
agree to greater evils by accepting
the judicial and state-regulation moose
which anti-union and aristocratic-
minded editors favor.
| Labor asks that its movement be
understood. 1t welcomes investiga-