The Connecticut labor news., 1922-12-29
ORGANIZED LABOR A NECESSITY, SAY
 PROMINENT MEN
Former president of United States
 Outspoken in Support of Labor Organizations.

Former president of United States Outspoken in Support of Labor Organizations. A committee, Ellis Searles, John Moore and Thomas Kennedy .repre- senting the United Mine Workers, has sent to The Mechanic a com | munication embracing testimony given before Senate committee hearing, and in which reliable evidence was offer 1 ed that deputy sherifs, armed guards and company spies are armed and ordered to prevent organization of coal miners in Logan county, West Virginia. This locality has been tse scene of a baby warfare between these armed guards and the miners SO anxious to organize, but the shotguns so far have ruled the field.
 Mine owners in Logan county will not allow their employees to organize, and this committee seeks to enlist fpublic sympathy for those unfortun- ate men, quoting many prominent statesmen, including President Hard ing and former Presidents Wilson, Roosevelt and Taft as being in favor of labor unions. 1t points with pride to the fact that the right of workers
 
 by y, President Harding in his inaugural When he was president, Woodrow Wilson on many occasions laid down and adhered to the principle that workers had the lawful and moral right to organize and bargain col actively with their employers.
 Theodore Roosevelt, while presi- dent of the United States in 1892, said; T believe emphatically in or ganized labor. I believe in organiza- tions of wage workers Organization Is one of the laws of our social and economic development at this time"
 Chief Justice Taft, before his cleo ton to the presidency, said: Whad the capitalist, who Is the employer Of labor must face IS that the organiza- ton of Iabor-the labor union-is a permanent condition in the industrial world. It has come to stay. If the employer would consult his own in- terest he must admit this and act on it. Under existing conditions the blindest course that an employer of labor can pursue Is to decline to recognize labor unions as the controlling force in the labor market and to insist upon deal ing only with his particular employees. Time and again one has heard the indignant expression of manager of some great industrial enterprise that he did not propose to have. the labor union run his business; that he would deal with his own men and not with outsiders The time has passed In which that attitude can be assumed wi@h any hope of successfully main taining it." During the war emer- gency, MT. Taft served as joint chair man of the War Labor Board, and 1t Is interesting to note that after his experience in that work he said on August 9, 1919: Labor unions have been necessary to secure to the lnd1- vidual workingman an opportunity to deal with his employer on an equality and free from the duress of the inme diate want of daily wage to demand what he regards as an adequate and just return for his labor, or to with draw from employment"
 And this from Charles Evans Hughes, now secretary of state, in an November 30, 1918: "1 trust there will be no more struggle Tn futile op position to the right of collective bar gaining on the part of employees. The recognition of the right of representa- ton and the prompt hearing of grlev ances provides the open door to req sonable and just settlements. And in, returning to peace conditions there ho11d be the utmost care pre- serve every possible means which has been found helpful during the war for the investigation of the complaints of labor and for the adjustment of de- mands.'
 Employers of importance and vision concede the right of the workers to organize. Thus John D. Rockefeller, Jr., said in the Annals of the Ameri- can Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1919: "As regards the organization of labor, it is just as proper and advantageous for labor to associate itself into organized groups for the advancement of it's legitimate interests as for capital to combine for the same objects"
 The United States Chamber of Commerce, in it's referendum No. 27, on a. report on principle of industrial relations ,declared: "The right of workers to organize is as clearly recognized as that of any other ele- ment or part of the community"