The Alaska daily empire., 1922-02-21
A Terrorist Alliance?
Boston News Bureau.)

The head of the unonized coal miners has played
a card suspected for time of having been up his
sleeve He formally asks the major railroad unions
to "join IN economic alliance" with the coal min
After denouncing such railroad wage reductions
been made and any attempt to cut coal wages
'he pledges miners ito uDreservedy pool their in
erests with the railroad organizations and stand with
hem in resistance proposed attacks on wage
Gales" The syndcast cat is quite clearly out OF
he bag
The implied program is the menacng of capital
and the public by threat joint strike this spring
The counting Of the railroad unions comes just suf-
fciently prior the April coal crisis to allow for
arranging such terrorism, for which the polite for
nula of the mine workers isthe collective strength
of the millions in these basic industries should
be crystalized in definite manner" Why stop
at two basic ndusties" in the making OF brotherly
alliances? Why limit the favor to the railroaders?
there not a few other type of workers, notably
in the building trades, who collectively seeking
immunity from wage defaton? Is not that the real
tie which binds?
Or are these and their like outside the fold be-
their spheres by nature local and their func
lions such that they cannot strike any or
sudden blows at the country's vals? They can, in
deed, make living dearer and meaner for all who need
roof; but the process is SLOW almost imperceptibe.
The terrCrists exclusive
By the nature of things the essence of the new
program is the exploiting of the fact that these
workers employed in crafts essential society s
existence Their detection, if complete and pro-
tracted enough, might obviously starve and freeze
society in its modern environment, well par
alyze its hands at their myriad tasks. For vital
craft to bowbeat is sinister enough to double the
menace is than douby And for what
purpose?
In partial measure to bolster the waning prestige
of union organiaztons,-eXp in the word rec
ognitiOn' But primarily to keep intact the wage
largess secured under abnormal conditions that
wholly passed. to keep it despite the fact that,
beside economic unwisdom and futility that effort
means injustice and handicap TO all other workers
whose readjusted returns these observation-disclosures
would complacenty fatten.
They had much to say while living costs were
rising that the basic for their getting
pay. But it is jug-handled reason; it keeps
Icommodity indices company in only direction.
And that stubbornness not only burdens all
Fother workers; it deprives many, in both and
railroad camps Of the chance work at all. What
the other elements of the community think of was
suggested by the farmers reports to the
railroaders for alliance
1t is with peculiar irony that the the COM
munty should read the words in which the mine
workers chief processes their profound interest
the welfare of the railroad workers. If in a tight
corner in confiict-either with capital, or of their
respective selfish interests-just how faithful and
persistent would that profound interest prove? Any
more than it did in England?
Why no interest at a-not to mind a profound
one,-in the welfare of all other fellow-citizens
natural condition need a specially decent socitude
of attention?
If carried too far this syndicast feint at ter
rorsm will itself court very drastic interest on
the part of all the rest of the nation Perhaps
also, the Attorney Generals utterances of YES
terday suggest lively interest the part of the
law.