The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1935-02-22
TheCherry
Tree ..;:. :: s';:; 8. !. 7: ::,:::, e.: :,
about many things, sometimes pre-
fsundIy, sometimes nippsMtly,
sometimes recklcssiy.

VI Soou many years LnlS cOlumn
has been viewing the events of the
day as the days passed by. 1t has seen
depression and prosperity and depres-
sion and prosperity and then depres-
sion.
1t has been running almost as long
as William Green has been resident
Of the American Federation of Labor.
Until very recently it saw no devia-
tion in the main direction of affairs
in the United States.
Now there is true deviation.
What the END of the curve will be
must remain to be seen, but there
is sharp turn.
1t is the kind of turn that can end
in extremes and extremes of more
than one kind.
The prerogatives of private prop
erty are being shorn.
The words collective responsible
ity' are being written across the
United States.
We needn't throw our hats too high
about that, because there is a long
ways yet to go-perhaps longer
way than any of those now alive will
see through to its ending. Maybe that
is just as well-who knows about
that?
There is, of course, reason.
Those who look at chart recently
prepared by the United States Bureau
lof Labor Statistics, showing the
American condition, will know that
either something has to happen, OF
else America must resign itself te
a condition in which the great bulk OF
its people have no hope of decency
and no desire to hope.
This chart shows two long lines OF
people who never have enough; sew.
eral shorter lines who do have
enough; little bit of a part of a
figure that is wealth-swollen.
Along with this chart you should
recall figures published in this news
paper, furnished by international La
Dor News Service, taken from official
sources.
They show just the same thing in
another way
The codes haven't made dent in
the situation revealed by that picture
and by those figures.
A big reason is that NRA soon for
got its purpose. Already consider
able bureaucracy has grown up within
it, and it is often more important to
be right in an academic way than to
be right in sound, practical way.
NRA hasn't taken labor into the
picture in an organic manner, and
thus it has made its greatest mistake
NRA is as afraid to do that as j. p
Morgan would be. It is very strange
But the pressure of circumstances
is carrying the nation forward just
the same. The sharp break in the cur
rent is well marked for those who
care to see.
The big thing for labor to do is to
see that collective responsibility
doesn't get itself all tangled up, off
on wrong tack.
The very best kind of collective
responsibility-if we could get it.
would be collective responsibility for
seeing to it that every American gets
the chance to work at right wages and
right hours, to earn enough so that
each could take care Of his own needs
and store up for his own old age
SO that each could throughout stand
on his own feet, master and free man
in everything.
The next few years will be OF enor-
nous Importance, and they will be
interesting. They will set the course
for many other years to come and
they will, in all probability, determine
the general type of social and eco
nomic organization in which the next
generation will live and fight things
out.
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