The Duluth rip-saw. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1917-19??, 1922-01-07

NOt long ago TtducI VI Lie NaL1Ou
tore out of his copy page advertise
ment containing reference to financial
control by "The Wall Street Banking
Group Underneath the advertise
ment was the union label of the Allied
Printing Trades. Our friend, under
scoring HWall Street, and the label,
inquired: Honest to God, which is
worse?" We presume that his sques-
tion refers TO the whole subject of the
alleged tyranny Of unions over the bus
mess world, rather than to the partiS-
ular relations Of The Nation with the
typographical unions. Nevertheless, in
passing, we may record eur apprecia-
ton OF. the courtesy and efficiency of
those who week by week print this
magazine. The Nation Press, Inc, is
comparatively owned and controlled by
its workers, and they preserve the high
est standards of service.
Labor unions are human. The queru-
lous question SO often heard over polite
tea tables, "What do these workers
wantF' is easily answered. They want,
ladies and gentlemen precisely what
the rest Of you want. You do not de-.
sire for yourselves primarily mechani-
cal efficiency ip production but life
more abundant. The industrial worker
wants precisely the same thing, and his
standards Of what constitutes an album
dant life are as various as the stand
ards of his critics. Why should it be
thought natural, if not admirable, for
broker to work as few hours as pos.
sible and play as many, but wicked for
bricklayer to want to emulate himg
Our own view Of the labor unionists,
let US confess, is often, consciously or
unconscionsly, distorted by class in
terest. The cheaper we can get others
to work for US the better off we are.
Of course the worker g interest is diff
ferent, and in asserting it in conjunc-
ton with his fellows he often presents
hostile front to us, or, shall we say,
to 'the public "What, he asks.
has the public ever done for me that
I shall be tender of its needss'', To
his own comrades he is capable of a
generosity seldom to be found among
those Of us who are pressed to the limit
to maintain by our own efforts our
footing in the comfortable middle-elass
world. Unions tax themselves as a mat
ter of course to aid their comrades in a
strike. The Amalgamated Clothing
Workers contributed $100, 900 to The
striking steel workers and more recent.
ly they have given $50, 900 to starving
Russia. The ordinary record of labor
union gifts to one cause or another is
amazing in its generosity. Long before
Mr.. Hoover's conference suggested the
division of jobs to meet the unemploy-
ment emergency, labor unions in vari-
Gus trades had put that plan in prac-
tice as far as employers would permit.
When has like comradeship been shown
by business men in division of their
order to help their fellowse The reason
for the greater generosity Of the work.
asrs liesanot in any intrinsic superi0rity
in character but rather III. the fine ca
paeity for called out BY or
ganization TO meet common needs. It
is this instinct for comradeship which
lies behind the union demand FOR uni
form wage scales which is so n often
entitled as protection for the ineffi.
Giant. A man good enough, the union
argues, to work at all, is good enough
to earn a fixed minimum wage. And
the more efficient man does an nm
brotherly thing if he allows his own
skill to be used to the hurt Of his fell
lows. at
But when all this has been said it
remains true that union tactics and
philosophy are often crude and stupid,
and sometimes anti-social. The aver
age householder has the poorest inn
preston of the standards of craftsman