The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-10
Liberal Viewpoint
by DR.. HARRY ELMER BARNES


IF those employers who are opposing the wag-
ner labor disputes bill had even the slightest
knowledge of industrial and social history many
Of them certainly would be ashamed Of their
attitude.
The automobile industry, for example, relies
for majority of its sales upon the insistence
that Americans must be thoroughly up-to-d date
in the model of car which they drive.
The automobile industry does not stand alone
in this respect, American manufacturing and
merchandising depends to a very considerable
in being thoroughly up-to-date. We must keep
up with the JoneSes.
The moguls of the automobile industry and
their associates in American business who are
opposing the principle of collective bargaining
show the greatest inconsistency in their thought
and social policy. They are exhibiting a model
of social thought which has long since been out
lawed in the civilized world outside the United
States.
Their latitude toward the labor problem is
of type which was common before any automo-
bile ever was put on the market. Indeed, the
most advanced countries in the western world
had abandoned such an attitude while the stage
trialistS exhibit horse and buggy psychology
while proudly riding about in the latest stream
line model Of automobile conveyance.
T EFT us look at few of the elementary his
IL torical facts. Cotton manufacture in Eng
land was dealing with trade unions as early as
1859. Labor unionism was legalized in England
over a century ago as result of the laborS of
Joseph Hume and Francis Place. The position
of labor was made secure by laws of 1871 and
1876.
Even imperial France under Napoleon III
legalized strikes in 1864 Twenty years later the
Third Republic conferred freedom upon labor
organizations. The government of Germany I'M
der the kaiser revoked the anti-socialistic laws
after 1890 and allowed labor to organize.
The lesser countries of Europe followed suit,
and labor very generally had won freedom to
organize and bargain before the dawn of the
twentieth century.
Until a recent wave of Fascism swept over
Europe manufacturers there felt themselves
lucky if they had to deal with nothing more
radical than trade unioniSm. In Europe, they
did not face merely a liberal and benevolent
brain trust" but had to cope with socialism,
communism or syndicalism compared with
which labor unionism seemed rather conserva-
tive
THOSE American manufacturers who are
Il waiting for little spot Of Fascism in the
United States to serve as an antidote against
trade unioniSm will do well to take second
thought and to study the status of manufac-
turers under Mussolini and Hitler. Industry is
IeSlI1euGeQ 10 ID ueBI6e WIllCll uldheS JIlS new
deal seem rugged individualism by comparison.
If our industrialists had more astute:iess, they
would cultivate, cherish and encourage the
American Federation of Labor as a bulwark
against radcaliSm
The federation is conservative and capitals
tic. Its two presidents, Gompers and Green
have kept the federation out of politics and have
| prevented the formation of a powerful labor
| party in the United States. John L. Lewis, head
of the union, that the steel industry has been
| fighting of late, tried to throw his organization
| to the support of Calvin Coolidge Matthew
Vol, very prominent in the councils of the
Federation of Labor, long has been a vice
president of the National Civic Federation one
| of our most reactionary and fanatically pa
| trioteering organizations.
Moreover, nothing which the federation asks
| for in the way of wage scales is any more than
would be necessary to insure adequate purchas-
ing power on the part of American workers
Neither automobiles nor anything else can be
sold unless the people have money.
Organized labor and collective bargaining are
| in reality bulwark against real economic ano
social radicalsm. If American business does not
make friends with the former, they sooner OF
| later will have to deal with the latter, which
will reject all overtures and compromise.