Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1922-07-09

every chapter in the history OF
such conflicts has it's bloody pages
Homestead, Occur d Alene, Pa
terson. Chicago, Colorado, San
Francisco, Los Angeles, West Nir-
ginia and now Illinois. The eli
max is always the same. the les
son is not to be escaped. Left to
themselves, labor and capital will
fight to the death, literally as well
as figuratively, and it is to check
this that measures are beng con-
sidered at the capital.
Not the least significan: phase
of the Illinois tragedy is the eyi-
dence that the union miners and
their sympathizers are largely, if
not completely, IN control of the
official machinery of Williamson
county. This is especially inter-
esting in view of the fact that it
is the exact reverse of the situa-
ton that has obtained in Mingo
county and Logan county, West
Virginia. In the West Virginia
counties the anti-union coal opera
tors are in the saddle politically,
and officially and there has been
abundant evidence that they ride
just as hard and just as ruthlessly
as the union miners in Illinois.
The financial coroners jury in
vestigation and verdict in the Her
rim affair has been condemned gem
orally. There has been much crit
icism of the apparent failure of the
sheriff and other officials there to
make any effort to prevent blood
shew, and the impotence of the
forces of law and order has been
attributed to political domination
by the union miners.
There is no disposition on the
part OF official Washington to
withhold condemnation of what
what has transpired in Illinois.
There is, however, insistence that
the record of what has happened
in West Virginia must not be for
gotten in considering more recent
events. For example, the Kenyon
committee investigation Of the
West Virginia controversy showed
that the anti-union coal operators
not only control Logan county po-
litically, but that they actually pay
the salaries of the deputy sheriffs
who are supposed to enforce the
laws Of the county. The opera
tors themselves testified that they
expended over $4,000 for this
purpose in 1920 and over SCI. 900
during the first 10 months of 1921,
and they also asserted that they
believed they had right to pre-
vent union meetings in Logan
county, or even to bar from the
county union organizers and SYM
pathizers. The attorney general of
West Virginia, Mr.. England, told
the committe that these deputies
very often beat up men in the
fields, beat up men that are en-
gagged there actively in order to de-
feat their ticket at the general cleo
tion they take charge of elections,
they run voters away from the
polls"
To date it has not been charged
that the sheriff or his deputies in
Williamson county, Illinois. are paid
their salaries by the miners union.
In that respect it least the miners
have not gone as far in Illinois as
the operators have gone in West
Virginia.
Evil i'm Both Situations,
Senators and representatives who
are seeking a solution of the strike
problem see little but evil in botn
situations Indeed, from the pub
! lie viewpoint it is intolerable that
either capital or labor should con-
troll the politics of a county or a
state and use that power in relent-
less warfare on the other. Both
sides are entitled to the protection
Of the law, but neither side should
be the law in even the smallest po-