The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1931-02-27
7heCherry
" Where with our
We tell the truth
about many things. sometimes pro-
foundly, sometimes Aippantly,
sometimes recklessly. ........

A great number of American rail
road men are going to Russia. They
are executives of all kinds, big, lit
tie and in-between. American rail
road are going to lose these men, for
the time being. American railroad
chiefs are picking them out for their
new jobs. Even the Baltimore & Ohio
is furnishing some of them.
This is great business for the So
viets-very poor business for America
and American railroads.
Just what ideas American railroad
executives have about this business is
not clear. Evidently they think it is
a fine thing to do. One is not to as
sumo, of course, that they are doing
it for cash.
If this can be so, it indicates very
clearly that man can be very good
railroad executive and at the same
time a very poor political economist,
understanding little or nothing of the
significance of great movements,
great dangers, great pitfalls.
There is little to be said for a
great segment of American business
in relation to the war against COM
munism. This great segment of
American business, which includes
such great industries as Ford and
General Electric and which now in
cludes a choice group of great rail-
roads, has gone after what it could
get out of the soviets, let the conse-
quences be what they may.
Consequences there will be, if COM
munism lasts long enough. Our big,
brainy, resourceful, but ridiculously
simple, business executives will find
that out in time and when that time
comes they will, as usual, expect
someone else to fight the battle for
them, just as someone else now is
fighting the battle for them.
While organized labor holds com
munism in check organized business
rakes in its shekels.
And, certainly enough, the lop-
cared intelligentsia sings the praises
of the big business men and damns
the trade unions for their patriotism
It's a queer world, as has been said
MANY times before by many persons
1t loses none cf it's queerness by
advancing age and experience.
No matter how large may be the
accumulated experience of the race
there seems always to come along
some new game that bluffs the seem
ingly wisest ones.
Big business is getting fooled now
so we think. But maybe not, after
all. Big business is reaping har'
vest of profit by furnishing ma
chinery to an outfit that needs thai
machinery to speed up and strengthen
it's war on the rest of the world.
When that war reaches these
shores the same big business mel
will continue to proft-as always
and Michael ]. Mutt will hold th'
line, even as now he holds it.
A man got himself famous once by
asking: "Who's looney now?"
But, looney or not, the wage earn
ers have to stand for principle. The,
cannot desert the flag for money o.
for foolishness.
One thing wage earners can do
They can pound home the trutl
about the issue between communism
and democracy, even to the point o
having some among their own rank
call them mad. They can and mus
hammer home, incessantly, the starl
madness of big business coterie tha
arms and equips the most amazin,
foe freedom has had since the down
fall of kaiserism.
1t is incumbent upon the wag
earners to see to it that the myth
are kept stripped away from the vi
pers' nest of communism.
As this war proceeds there ism
going to be much quarter given. Tha
has been the communist position al
along. Perhaps it is not too soon TO
those whose faith is in liberty an
democracy to let their determinatio
be known likewise.
There never has been much quartz
given in the age-long fight betwee
liberty and oppression.