Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-09-15
Continued from Last Week.
Organized Labor Has Power to Rul'
the Nation.

/ journal says: II OfgdnlLeu IapoI mas
ever mad the power TO rule the nation,
lit has lost it, Organized labor has
never mas the power to rule the ma
/ ton. and from the experience have
/ had in organized labor work during
the last forty years, ! have never
heard or known OF the time When or
! ganized labor ever wanted to rule the
nation. All it has ever asked Tor Is
square deal. (Applause.l
But when you say that labor could
rule the United States, or the world
/ for that matter, that is an entirely
different proposition. Labor has Inc
power to rule this country politically,
because it casts 50 per cent oil the
votes. Forty per cent OF our voting
population is made up OF farmers ana
10 per cent of industrial WORKERS
of railroad men, miners, etc.-thefe
your so per cent. Yet, at the same
time. we have not as working people
ruled the nation or tried 10 rule the
nation, because the majority OF US IN
the days of long ago-and not so long
ago either-haye been too busy with
matters other than paying attention
to the ballot box. tApplause.) But,
my friends, the most powerful weapon
that labor has is the ballot box, the
vote, and if labor will ONLY vote as
it should, the workers will surely
come into their own. (Applause.)
Iab0r's Representation IN l.. ,.
Congress
| am going to call your attention to
the personnel of our present Congress.
This information | got from the Liter
airy Digest Of April 70, 1871. In the
present Congress, the SlXty-seVenth,
we have 298 lawyers out OF 03l Con-
gressmen and United States Senators.
How many of these lawyers did La
Dor go and see, talk with, and find out
where they stood in 1920. ! do not
know of a single instance of this kind.
Now, some of those attorneys are
friendly to us, few of them are very
friendly to us, but these you can al
most name on the fingers of both
hands. Labor let the other fellow
name the lawyers, then Labor went up
and voted to put them in office. And
you have got your choice to your
hearts content.
The Bankers, the Farmers and the
Workers
We have in Congress twenty-slx
bankers. How many of those bank
ers did Labor talk with? From how
many of them did Labor secure a
pledge to do by Labor as Labor should
be done by? You and | know well
that we have got to have banks
places for the safe-keeping of our
money. They are business neces-
sity. But from my experiene with
the Bankers Association ! am con-
WINGED that as a class bankers are no
friends of Labor Notwithstanding the
millions and millions of dollars OF the
money of the working class that are
on deposit in their banks. was
campaigning through Eastern Kansas
and Western Missouri for the purpose
of helping one of the greatest men
that ever championed the cause OF
Labor, especially railroad Labor-one
of the greatest men that has lived
since the fall of the Roman Empire
or since Nero fiddled and Rome
burned, Woodrow Wilson (applause),
and had reached Kansas City while
the Bankers Association was in SEES
sion there, 5000 of them, and they
adopted resolutions condemning him
because he saw fit to assist in passing
the Adamson Law.
Last fall, in Los Angeles, the
Bankers Association again met, and
they said that railroad wages were
too high and must come down. As l
said before, the banker as banker
is all right, but let him attend to his
own business and let him leave me to
attend to mide. When an engine crew
couples on to a hundred loaded cars
with 5000 tons of freight, when
railroad train service men are fight
ing the battles that they have to fight,
day in day out, night in night out,
rain or shine, heat or cold, what does
the banker know about it? Yes, l
want him to keep his affairs to him.
self; we will take care of ours. zap
plause.) If he takes care of your
money and has il for you when you
call for it under the banking laws he
has got his hands full without trying
to put the Adamson Law out of joint,
(Applause.)
There are twenty-one farmers in
the United States Congress. The
farmers constitute 40 per cent of the
vote of the nation and they have but
twenty-one farmers in Congress rep
resenting them? Go to the average
| farmer and ask him Are you sure
| that those farmers who are represent
| ing YOU in Congress are real farmers
men that work the soil or are they
merely farmers that farm on paper z"
And he will tell you that real dirt
! farmers are very few and far between
in that delegation.
Now then, Labor--what we call the
| industrial worker--the railroad man,
the miner, the shopman, the men of
! the building crafts, etc, constitute
another 40 per cent of the nations
voters, and Labor has but five mem
bers in the United States Congress.
So SAYS the Literary Digest. Taking
it for granted that the farmers and
1.-The others-we will call them all
workers-constitute so per cent of the
voters of the United States--we have
26 Congressman representing us out
of 53t.
The Literary Digest says that the
British House of Commons has SO
Labor members. That shows you the
difference between the men of the two
countries-whether they are toe busy
to 90 to the polls on election days,
whether they are too indifferent to
pay their poll tax, or get a registra-
ton receipt to enable them to do by
themselves and their country as they
should. And is it any wonder that
American Labor is in the hole?
Beveridge Should BE Defeated.
Last November | was travelling
from Pueblo, Colorado, to Denver,
Colorado, and l picked up a copy of
the Denver News. 1t devoted its first
and second pages to an address de-
livered the night before in New York
City by former United States Senator