Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-08-11

3 USED pDilIltH loI hHt pun Hlsf u gam
ering unto themselves and those they
represent all of the earnings Of the
rest Of the people possible. These
representatives OF big business have
become the misrepresentatiVes Of the
public. and are responsible for
the deplorabe conditions existing
throughout the industrial world today.
This vas the thought expressed by
Vice President Maier Of the Intema-
national Boilermakers' Union, who
spoke before the striking shopmen at
Labor Hall Tuesday afternoon.
Mr.. Maier said that it was about
time the American people, and union
workers especially, woke up. He re-
ferred to the stubbornness of the
workers at the last presidential cleo
tiOn--their determination to vote for
change Of party politics regardless
Of the advice of those who were in
position 70 advise-4and he said, Took
at the state of conditions things are
in today"
The speaker believed, however, that
workers and farmers generally were
beginning to see the reasonableness of
voting for the men who will represent
the great majority of the people in
stead of the few who have headquar-
ters on Wall Street. The results of
the recent primaries in Indiana, Iowa,
North Dakota, and several other
states indicate that voters are taking
more active interest in political
affairs, and are determined to throw
into the scrap heap those reaction
rates who in the past have shown by
their actions to be unworthy the sup
port of the common people."H
He urged that workers at the COM
ing elections, weed out those who vot-
ed with Wall Street against the rail
road workers in the passage of the
Cummins-Esch bill, which he charac-
terized as one of the greatest injus-
tees ever inflicted upon any group of
workers. "Bill Bilp' Taft, he said,
who cast the deciding vote that
wrecked the child labor law, and who
is the father of the injunction, was
made supreme justice by those
whom the workers helped elect. This
fact alone should be sufficient to
clearly demonstrate the folly of vot-
ing for man simply because he hap
pened to be politician on the politi-
cal ticket of the voters choice.
1t took fifty years of constant en-
deavor on the part of organized labor
to have the child labor law enacted.
This law has kept children out of the
factory and put them into the schools
and on the Fairgrounds. But it took
"Big Bill'' Taft only ten seconds to
attach his signature to document
that wiped out all the good accom-
plished by half a century's constant
agitation by organized labor. And
now, in some states, little children
from five to fourteen years old are
taking their fathers places in the
mills and factories, while the father
is forced out of work.
The strike situation is good, said
Mr.. Maier. The strike is won, but
two or three railway officials are
dying hard, and are holding up settle
ment by their insistance that senior
ity rights be taken away from the
strikers, which, the speaker said,
would not be agreed to by the crafts
on strike. The men will return to
work with their seniority rights un-
impaired, or they will not return at
all, said the speaker.
The railway labor board he charac-
terized as being tool of the railway
executives, who were able to secure
any and all decisions they demanded
while the workers have been made the
subjects of many adverse decisions
Beginning with July l, 1921, wages
were reduced eight cents an hour;
then later the board declared the ma
tional agreement abrogated, taking
away working conditions, hours, ETC.;
later, the board rendered decision
taking away time and one-half fol-
overtime, thereby doing away with 0
condition that had been in force fol
over 40 years--long before the shoI
crafts we're even organized; still
later, the board authorized physical
examinations for workers in the EN-
ploy of the roads, and, through com
pany doctors, eliminated many mer
active in union matters as well as dis.
charging bodily thousands of men whS
had grown old in the employ of thu
companies and who would in short
time be eligible for pensions.
Still the workers did not strike
although any one of the above decis
ions would have been provocatior
enough. Farming out of repair worl
to dummy contractors by the rail
roads was permitted by the board
and in this way many railroads evad
ed the decisions of the board, anC
thousands of employees were subject
ed to conditions far below those pre-,
scribed by the railway labor board.
Then came the straw that broke
the cancels back, and strike was
called upon July /, 1922, against 8
further decision of the board agar
reducing the hourly pay to 9 cents
an hour.
Il When President Harding first pro,
posed a basis for settlement with
the seniority rights of the men unim
paired and with other conditions anC
rate of pay to be reconsidered by tn,
railway labor board, the Federated
Shop Crafts signifed their willing
ness to go back to work under thes,
conditions; but these conditions wers
not to the liking of the few die-harC
railway executives, who refused t
consider settlement unless the matter
of seniority was also left open for
decision of the board So the presi
dent very accommodatingly revised
his basis for settlement by proposing
Federal Court Writ