The New York herald., 1922-07-14
Gompers Against the President.

Gompers Against the President.
SAMUEL GoMPERs is so entirely right
In his assertion Of the impossibility
Of making men work against their
will under present American prin-
ciples and practices that the PROPOSE
tion as such calls for no discussion.
What inevitably follows his PROPOSE
tion does call for discussion under
the circumstances, and, when chal-
lenged by physical force and lawless
violence, 1t calls for action by the
public and by the Government repre-
sentatives of the public.
In this country, as President
HARDING has put 1t so simply, the
liberty which gives any man the
right not to work also gives any man
the right to work. Strikers and mobs
cannot interfere with the man who
wants to work without infringing his
legal and sacred rights. Strikers
and mobs cannot resort to violence
against the man who wants to work
without bringing down upon them
selves the restraining power Of any
Government that is fit to live for a
liberty loving people.
GoMPERs cannot understand what
1t Is that has set the American peo-
pie against the railroad shop strikers,
but If he and they persist in illegal
interference with the rights Of others
to work in the shops the American
people will make him understand.
The American people think 1t was
not common sense for the leaders of
the shop crafts to order the strike
when the United States Railroad
Labor Boards findings did not suit
the union heads. The American peo-
pie think 1T was not good sports
manship for the shop unions to take
from the board every decision that
was entirely in favor Of the unions
but to reject the decision that was
not In their favor. The American
people think 1t was an outrage for
the leaders of the shop crafts to in
suit and vilify the board for per-
forming its duty in the light 1t saw
its duty.
But all that Is not what turned the
American people solidly and grimly
against the striking shop crafts. It
was that when the shop strikers had
themselves chosen not to work they
dared to challenge the United States
Government itself for announcing
that men wanting to work in the
railroad shops or anywhere else must
be permitted 80 to work, and, in their
right to work and in their actual
work, must be protected from vio-
lence and crime-must be protected
by all the law enforcing agencies of
American government, Federal, State
and local.
That is what GoMpERs really is
driving at. GoMpERs knows nobody
is trying to force the striking shop
workers back to their jobs. GoMPERs
knows they can stay out till the crack
of doom II they want to and nobody
will try to force them back. But
GoMPERs also knows that thousands
of shop workers who do want to
work under the terms Of the boards
decision are being employed by the
railroads. GoMPERs knows that even
members of the striking shop unions
are going back to their work in spite
of the strike order And GoMPERs
knows no strike is long for this world
under such circumstances.
So GoMPERs finally gets to his real
point and assails the President of the
United States-for what? For try
ing to force men to work against
their will? Not at all; for defend
ing the right Of men to work In
the shops--for defending strikebreak-
ers, as, in the distorted vision oi
GoMpERs, any men are who want tc
work where others do not want tc
work.
That is what the matter Is with
GoMPERs.