The Connecticut labor news., 1924-01-19

1 More pure unadulterated bunk about how the "open shop" welcomes in organized workers, was passed out this week through the "open shop columns of the Hartford Courant but it's so glaringly a bald distortion o facts that 1t IS passed along so that union men can see to what extremes the foes of Labor are now pressed
 Under the double-column caption Labor Organizations Can Exist Un- der Open Shop Conditions the l Courant says:
 It is frequently asserted that if open shop conditions generally pre- vailed labor organizations could not exist. If labor organizations can maintain their existence only because of the unfair closed shop, then some as a matter of fact open shop con ditions will not in any way lessen ] the possibilities of good work by or ganizations based on right principles which are practiced in the right manner.
 Tt is being claimed today, without 1 the slightest attempt to substanti- ate such statements by facts, that employers are laying off men who are receiving high wages so that they may be re-employed at lower wages and under shop conditions What employer is going to lay off men and stop production when he ldoes not have to? Every firm has to pay interest upon it's investment, l which includes the cost of the plant and machinery. The salaries of the officers and office force must be paid. Expenses such as lighting, heating and insurance must be paid. Taxes must be paid If plant is closed for a month, 1t simply means that expenses kep on running dur ing the month; that it will have to operate just so much longer before any profit can be shown. Practi- cally every manufacturing plant or mercantile establishment, which is operated by men of ability, is run on borrowed capital; practically all of them owe thousands of dollars to the banks If they are idle their profits cease, and the banks, to protect them selves, naturally begin to squeeze and curtail their loans. No business will remain idle more than it abso- lutely has to. The slightest knowl- edge of economic laws makes this clear. Those who talk of a gigantic plot 10 close down industry and bring about open shop conditions certainly ] believe the public is gullible.
 This IS the view taken by the New York Times in an editorial:
 The unemployment of capital is the unemployment of labor. Nothing pleases the capitalist more than to | Dut his dollars to work and he can not do that without paying wages. Nothing offends the economist more than the unemployment of capital, be- cannot be armed tomorrow. Charles M, schwab is both a capitalist and a master workman. He worked his master for others than for himself His grievance against the tax law, which expresses all industry is not that they part him from his money, but that they make capital unproduc- tive. Excessive taxes lend toward leveling, but it is leveling downward, because the supply of free capital arising from prolts, instead of being turned back into industry, is turned into the coffers of the government and there IS mostly wasted. Govern
 nent makes no money, and pays no wages in productive industry.
 "The taxes which the government takes are diverted from the wage fund. When the taxes are put on the rich the poor do not have to pay them, but they suffer from loss of wages which the taxes would produce if they were invested capital. If