The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-05-31
Liberal Viewpoint
BY DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

IF those employers who are opposing the Wag-
4 ner labor bill had even the slightest knoWI-
edge of industrial and social history many OF
them would certainly be heartily ashamed OF
their attitude.
The automobile industry, for example relies
for a majority of its sales upon the inSlstence
that Americans must be thoroughly up-to-date
in the model of car which they drive.
The automobile industry does not stand alone
in this respect. American manufacturing ana
merchandising as a whole depend to very con-
siderable degree upon the psychological element
involved in being thoroughly up-to-date. we
must keep up with the Joneses here.
The mogIlS of the automobile industry and
their associates in American business VINO are
opposing the principle Of collective bargaining
show the greatest inconsistency in their thought
and social policy They are exhibiting model
of social thought which was long since outlaWeo
in the civilized world outside the United STATES
Their attitude toward the labor problem is
! of a type which was common before any AUTO
mobile was ever put on the market. Indeed, the
most advanced countries in the Western world
had abandoned such an attitude while the stage
coach was still popular. At the BEST our IN
dustrialists exhibit horse-and-buggy psychology
while proudly riding about in the latest stream
line model of automotive conveyance.
r EFT us look at few OF the elementary his
IL orical facts. Cotton manufacturers in Eng
land were dealing with trade unions as early as
1859 Labor unionism was first legahzed in Eng
land over a century ago as the result OF the Ia
| bors of Joseph Hume and Francis Place. Inc
opposition of organized labor in England was
made secure by laws of 1871 and 1876.
Even imperial France under Napoleon III le-
galized strikes in 1864 Twenty years later the
| Third Republic conferred freedom upon labor Or
carnations. The government of Germany under
the Kaiser revoked the anti-socialistic laws soon
after 1890 and allowed labor to organize
The lesser countries of Europe followed suit,
and labor had very generally won freedom to or
ganize and bargain before the dawn of the twen-
tieth century.
Until the wave Of Fascism recently swept over
| Europe, manufacturers there felt themselves
lucky if they had to deal with nothing more rad
| ical than trade unionism. In Europe, they did
not face merely a liberal and benevolent brain
trust" but had to cope with socialism, conlmu-
nism, or syndicalisrn, compared with which labor
| unionisn seemed rather conservative.
Those American manufactur who are wait
ing for a little spot of FsSciSm in the United
States to serve as an antidote against trade
unioniSm will do well to take a second thought
and to study the status of manufacturers under
NIussolini and Hitler. Industry is regimented to
a degree which makes the New Deal seem rugged
individualisn by comparison.
IF our industrialsts had little astuteness they
4 would cultivate. cherish and encourage the
American Federation Of Labor as a bulwark
against radicaliSm
The Federation, as Stolberg and Vinton have
shown, is conservative and capitalstic. 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, tried
to throw his organization to the support Of Cal
win Coolidge.
Matthew VOL, very prominent in the councils
OF the Federation Of Labor, has long been vice
president of the National Civic Federation, one
of our most react onary and fanatically patri-
oteering organizations.
Moreover, nothing which the federation asks
for in the way of higher wage scales is any
more than would be necessary to insure adequate
purchasing power on the part of American work.
ers. Neither automobiles nor anything else can
be sold unless the people have money to buy
them with.
Organized labor and collective bargaining are,
in reality bulwark against real economic and
social radicalism. If American business does not
make friends with the former, they will sooner or
later have to deal with the latter, which will
reject all overtures and compromise.