Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-05-05
WORKERS OPPOSE
STATE CONTROL OF
HUMAN LABOR


told Mr.. Samuel Untermyer, counsel
York city, that courts are invariably
on the side of capitalists and that or
ganized workers will resist state
regulation.
These editors are at least logical in
their frenzy--they refuse to accept
modern ideal that labor is not a COM
modify.
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 its legalistic blessings"
on the men and women of toll, while
other groups of citizens are encour-
aged 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.
dered to lower rates, but he is never
told, as are workers, that he and his
associates must submit to the state q
list Of their necessities and they must
labor under conditions set by state
machinery.
It may be said that the railroad
manager has no right to stop serving
the public by ceasing to run trains,
k.4 - oil he a e nE
labor.
OF course, the railroad manager
has no right to stop serving the pub
lic His railroad was given corporate
life with the distinct understanding
that it would serve the nublic. That
is the major reason for the railroads
corporate existence, though this fact
has been overlooked by looting finan-
ciers and their defenders who demand
returns on water"
To say that the regulation of a rail-
road or other corporation justifies
state regulation of human beings Is
to place workers in the chattel slave
era while advocates of the theory
brazenly profess their superior per-
son" faith.
Labor agrees that strikes are no
solution for the labor problem, but
they are far preferable to state
edict or court command that to quit
work is criminal. The public's con-
venience is nothing compared with
this debasement of American man
hood that organized 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 citizen
ship 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 capitalists 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 viii not
agree to greater evils by accepting
the judicial and state-regulation
moose which anti-union and aristo-
cratic-minded editors favor.
Labor asks that its movement be
understood. 1t welcomes investiga-
ton and criticism that is impelled by
high patriotism rather than by hopes
for cheap labor and serf conditions.
Labor pleads for a social conscience
that will be alert to injustice and
wrong.
But labor will not be bludgeoned or
caioIed into surrendering inherent
rights that are never questioned when
other citizens are involved.
These Garyized editors may as well
compose themselves. Unseemly rage
poisons their systems and increases
the mortality rate.
They will never terrify workers or
browbeat them into accepting "can't
strike" courts, injunction judges and
state regulation.