The Connecticut labor news., 1924-03-08
Labor College To Be. Established By New Haven Union Men
Open Meeting of Trades Council Addressed
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Establishment of a Labor College, through group forums to study the problems of Labor, economics and in fact better education in general, was started at the New Haven Trades Council at an open meeting on Thurs day night at which the matter was thoroughly gone into by Yale pro- fessors clergyman and a Labor leader and was enthusiastically grasped immediately afterward by a number of members sufficient to start off the courses with several classes. The college will be con- ducted without expense, Yale men and their leaders in education having promised to give all the aid necessary to carry on the work. Instead of lectures the courses will take the form of group forums, with per haps fifteen minute instruction fol- lowed by general discussion of the topic so that it will sink in and stay there.
 Jasper McLevy of Bridgeport, well
 
 cussion with brilliant speech DOT traying that the workingman was be- ing imposed upon because he didn't know his rights and was imposing upon himself by not studying more and understanding just what he is surrounded by and what he can do about it. The ever encroaching en- tanglements being placed about the workers, especially the organized workers by the predatory interests was pointed out and the workers were told the only way to stop them was to study the problems themselves and be enlightened to combat them.
 The right of free speech and free assembly he particularly went into and too the Ernest Schliefer case as an example. Schliefer violated no law, he declared proven by the fact that the states attorney A. A. All ing had to rush to Hartford and se- cure passage of law after Schliefer had been arrested. Had Schliefer committed any crime there was sufi- cient law on the statutes to punish him, as there never was time when anyone in the state of Connecticut, could do any act against any person or property without being amenable to punishment. But the interests wanted Schliefer shut up so they went to Hartford and put over law that is not only disgraceful but worse than the worst of of tyrannical laws of old. It is so much more drastic than the so-called intimidation law that Labor has been fighting for years a sto make the old law look like beneicence and it will never be repealed until the workers educate ehemseves up into their rights and ways of Insisting upon a square deal from the lawmakers and dispensers.
 The Rev. Clarke Kennedy of St. Johns P. E. Church endorsed every thing MT. McLevy said and declared them just the sort of thnigs the La bor man should know and realize where he was at. He cannot wait for his children to grow up and be educated higher than he himself is as the children will also lose out unless the worker now educates himself in the problems of the day and gets busy to protect himself and his rights. He referred to the success of .the Labor party in England and de- cIared that it was brought about solely by studying conditions and rights. The workers have the power to gather these facts and demand their rights and to make this decent and happy country to live in. Edu- cation is the one great weapon at the hands of the workers and if they do not grasp it their opponents will surely and will continue to keep them down.
 Prof. E. s. Furniss of Yale then outlined the many courses that work CTS in group forums could take up and study. These ranged all the way from the history of organized labor, through economics and to higher lit erature. It's up to the workers to do these things for the country as the privileged class won't. His ex- perience at Yale and other colleges