The Connecticut labor news., 1924-11-22
IA. F. of |. Executive Council Sees
 Steady Growth of Progressive Thought
BY THE WAY
Comment and Criticism About Things
 Doing in the World.

Another hero of the labor haters falls Sheriff Don Chain, czar of Logan coun- ty, West Virginia, long notorious as a foe of labor, is sentenced to Alanta Pen itentiary on boot-legging charge
 Thus passes Sheriff Don and peans of thanksgiving arise from the West Virginia mining communities, which have just cause to fear the we'll press agented overlord of Logan.
 That Sheriff Don will ever .'come back" is improbable If he had been convicted of shooting union miner, his glory" as labor batter would not have been dimmed but rather enhanced. Cha fin, however, was found guilty of con- spring to run "speak-easy," which sa- vors little of the heroic but instead snacks strongly of the bootlegger who plies his profession under cover of dark ness.
 In sentencing Sheriff Don, Federal Judge McClintic, who IS not regarded as friend of the miners, paid his re- spects in no uncertain language to the sheriff and his tyrannical rule The judge charged that Chain had been re- sponsible for the denial of constitutional rights to citizens of Logan county and denounced the use of mine guards as a system of tyranny.
 Sheriff Don and his rule show what happens when an agent of predatory business Is permitted to prostitute gov ernment to the use of private greed. Conditions such as exist in Logan must end. The downfall of Logan's czar will help.
 It will not surprise Progressives to learn that George s. Ward, head of the anti-union Ward Baking Company, is active in soliciting funds for the Repub- lican campaign.
 Ward recently wrote to baking and allied interests asking money for the Coolidge fund. It was one of many sent out by heads of big business as chair men of Republican fund committees ap- pointed to Took after" various groups of bankers, manufacturers and brokers.
 In seeking to line up big business be- hind Coolidge, Ward and his non-union associates are running true to form It is quite evident that they believe that a Coolidge administration would look with a benevolent neutrality, if not with ac- tual friendliness, on their "open-shop" activities.
 While Ward hasn't committed himself on Davis, there Is little doubt that he would be perfectly satisfied to have the Democratic candidate in the White House The only candidate Ward and his kind don't want in the White House is LaFollette. The significance of this should not be lost on the workers.
 Barney Cohen, union man and em- ploye of the United States Employment Bureau, has been getting his name in the papers by solemnly asserting that the American Federation of Labor can not control the five million votes it claims and that the intelligent workers will vote for Coolidge and Dawes.
 Cohen knows perfectly we'll that the A. F. of L. has never claimed to con-i trol the votes of its members and he must be endowed with colossal nerve to charge that 1t makes any such claim It shows that he thinks the public will believe any wild statement he chooses to make
 Cohen is equally mistaken when he declares that the intelligent workers will vote for Coolidge and the labor-hating Dawes. The intelligent workers have carefully studied the records and plat forms of the various candidates and a large proportion of them will vote for LaFollette and Wheeler. They will do this, not because they have been urged by the American Federation of Labor to support the Progressive candidates, but because they believe with the Feder- ation that LaFollette and Wheeler best represent the great producing masses of the country and that vote for LaFol- lette and Wheeler is vote to abolish corruption in our Government and bring it back to the people. HOURS OF LABOR IN ENGLAND |