The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-02-08
A Timely Editorial
Labor and Big Business
Springfield Republican,

N
 William G. Lee, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, becomes president of railroad sup ply corporation soon after Warren 5. Stone, president of the Brother hood of Engineers and of the Broth erhood bank of Cleveland, is elected director of the Empire Trust com pany of New York. MT. Lee, whose views on labor issues have been in- creasingly conservative in recent years, has apparently withdrawn en- tirely from the service of organized labor, where he has shown unques- toned ability and solidity. It is to be inferred that he will better him. self financially by the change, and that his resignation does not ex- press disagreement with the idea of his associates. though such disagree ment may exist. MT. Stones advent into New York banking, on the other hand, represents forward step taken by his brotherhood to build up economic power by en- ploying the established methods of finance.
 The Motherhood bank at Cleve- land, established in 1920, was not the first labor bank, but it has at tracted wide attention on account of the eminence and influence of this brotherhood and the known espousal by it's president of government own ership of railroads. The Interna- tional Association of Machinists several years ago bought an interest in bank at Washington. That, it is stated. was the pioneer Ameri- can labor banking enterprise. At present the Amalgamated Clothing Workers have a bank and numerous labor banks are springing up all over the country. But when it was announced last month that the Brotherhood of Engineers had bought large interest in the Elm pire Trust company of New Yok, and that Chief Stone would sit on the same board of directors with Charles M. Schwab and T. Coleman DuPont, the arrival of labor in the bi gbanking field received dramatic illustration which struck the imagi- nation of the country as no earlier undertaking of the kind had done.
 The purpose of railroad labor in entering the banking field was stat ed frankly, though with oratorical exaggeration, by Chief Stone at the annual convention of the locomotive firemen in June :--
 If you will use the power you
 hold in your hands, in ten years
 you can control the financial pol
 icy of the United States.
 Reduced to the lanuage of busi- ness, this seems to mean that labor intends to use the power of credit, so far>as it can, for the benefit of organized workers, and, probably, of employers who are liberal in their treatment of labor or interests which are regarded as not unfriend- ly to labor.
 For instance, the Brother bod bank has not only financed coop erative stores, but has loaned money to stock raisers and wheat growers in the west. A remark of Chief Stone has also implied that the brotherhood's banks would help to procure for the railroads the capital that railroad labor has to invest and thus convert the workers into own CTS, or part owners, of the proper ties, and impose upon them the re- responsibilities of ownership. Fossil bly, MT. Stone still looks forward to the same form of tripartite owner ship proposed by the Plumb plan and hopes to finance the purchase of the employees share in the proper ties.
 The entrance of the brotherhoods into banking is not, however, re- garded as a radical step. It is gen. erally welcomed as the reverse. For it is believed that as labor, through its ablest leaders, familiarizes itself with the problems of finance and management, more responsible at titude will be taken toward the is sues which have been allowed to precipitate strikes. or threats of strikes, in the past.
 A GREAT TEMPTATJON