Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-01-06
TRAP PLANNED
FOR LABOR BY
ADMINISTRATION
(By LAWRENCE TODD
Federated Press Correspondent
Ut -. AN.tal e. gbo ar,=i >

federated Press Correspondent
Washington.-Wa for the spring
ing of q trap upon the organized labor
movement by the Harding administra-
ton.
The bait for this trap will be a
plan for Industrial courts, innocently
worked out by Senator Kenyon In his
report on the West Virginia mine war
as q remedy for the terrorism and OPP
preston exercised by the non-unlon
mine operators against their en-
ployes. Kenyon Is sincerely DESTROYS
of helping the workers-so long as
they do not try to change conditions
radically" But the great majority
of Republicans and Democrats in the
senate and house are apparently ready
to swamp his bill with amendments
which will make of it a machine for
breaking the labor organizations IN
i this country.
Since labor is deply suspicious of all
j such industrial court schemes with
good reason--a series of preliminary
! drives upon the flanks of the labor
/ forces will be necessary to bring them
up to the vicinity of the trap. The
supreme court has begun the first
/
] the power of district judges to enjoin
unions against picketing. Within a
] few weeks, it is confidently predicted,
/ the supreme court will hand down its
/ decisions in tie Coronado Coal Com
pany case, finding that the United
/ Mine Workers of America must pay
i 100000 in damages to coal com
| pany because of loss suffered through
/ its organizing activities. The decision,
drafted more than a year ago and
/ withheld until a safe moment, de-
stroys the immunity of labor union
/ funds from seizure for alleged dam
ages due to the mere fact that the
union has won strike. Union funds
will thenceforth be constantly in
/ jeopardy, and the exercise of the
right to strike will be restricted by
willingness to lose all the property
and funds of the union.
While this attack is being developed
on one flank, the Albert Johnson citi-
zenship-qualification bill will be turn
ed upon the other end of the line.
This bill, if enacted, will hold over the
head of every alien, and every man
whose citizenship is not more than
five years established, the threat of
loss of citizenship and of deportation
if he takes an active part in the la
Dor movement. For it forbids MEM
bership in or encouragement of, any
organization which, among other
things, favors unlawful injury to
private property" As this sort of
injury is precisely what the courts
! declare strikers and pickets to be
guilty of, and as the alien is pecul-
iarly open to intimidation at this
point, the labor organizations in
which large numbers of aliens or new
citizens are active will be crippled the
moment the bill becomes law.
As though to make sure that no one
in the labor ranks shall escape the
new terror, Senator Sterling announe-
es that he will again bring forward
his permanent sedition bill, aimed at
! Americans who hold radical economic
views and who engage in railroad,
coal and food transportation strikes.
As in the citizenship bill, he talks of
unlawful injury to property" as the
crime which must be prevented OF
punished.
If American labor can be persuaded
by press propaganda and presidential
speeches and statements by cabinet
officers and others, that it cannot
win its liberation through strikes OF
through organizing the unorganized
or through radical economic changes
which may be secured through radio
al economic changes which may be Sc
cured by peaceful of political means
it may possibly look with relief to-
ward the Kenyon plan of industrial
courts, with their code of principles
and stipulations of rights for capital
and labor Then, when the original
Kenyon plan has been accepted in
principle, and the public has been
taught to believe that it will be en-
acted, the real purpose of the admin.
| istration will be disclosed through q
series of amendments putting teeth
; into it, Those teeth will furnish the
= compulsory feature which will abolish
= the right of men TO quit work in order
r to improve their working conditions
: Some of the highest labor union of.
} ficers in Washington, anticipating the
Coronado decision, feel that the SUI
e preme court is taking the position
- that organized labor is most danger
+ Gus when it has financial standing
and that the business ventures of Ger
ID tain unions such as the Locomotiv,
- Engineers and the MachiniSts are al
affront to the employing class which
= cannot be tolerated, BY inviting al
y hostile employers to come forwar,
1 with damage suits, the court may sooi
4 drive labor from the financial game
70 and reduce its organizations to tn,
r status of mere temporary committees
;. At the end of this road lies the indus
+ trial court, stretching out its Stee
e arms to gather the workers under it
r firm protection" and rigid control.
Controliino Dreanns