Montana labor news., 1936-12-31

Ih and Hotel n L9te mas
beer : Ttised on the unfair list in
the ana Labor News for a long
tin = Z many months before MIR
7. edges came to Billings this
IN Der.
ings is not a strange town to
! lodges: he has been here upon
raj occasions. He knew when he
lie reservations at the Grand that
/ II was unfair. He also is familiar
with labor attitude toward scab ho-
tells, cafes, and industries, generally
In his letter he claims to have
worked with organized labor to some
extent at Great Falls. He is a mar
of more than ordinary intelligence
and understanding SO a hardly be
as simple as he would seem.
If)
Mr. T. Hodges as director of ath-
letics in the Great Falls schools
knows that he must be right with
organized labor to hold his job.
g
1t is generally understood at Bill
lings that the Grand Hotel and Cafe
makes a business arrangement with
coaches and others in charge Of
parties stopping at hotels and eating
at cafes. Maybe, Mr.. Hodges, being,
as he says, a business man, is the
reason why he is so determined to
patronize these places.
These facts, I believe, brother
workers, establish my allegations
made in the first paragraph, that
Mr.. T. E. Hodges in an effort to jus
tify acts and attitude towards or
ganized labor resorts to downright
and deliberate falsehood. What dc
you think?
Answering Mr.. Hodges further, ]
challenge the statement in the first
| paragraph of his letter to you, to the
effect, Il was very surprised that ]
should have received this cOmmuni-
cation" If he were surprised it was
| because his acts had been called tc
your attention and he had not gotten
| away with it, as he had anticipated
l am of the opinion that he will still
be more surprised before the matter
is closed, if l know anything about
organized labof. Mr.. Hodges gives
three reasons for his surprise"
| answer them in their order.
First: The above facts prove this
| statement false. If members of or
ganized labor attending the State
Bowler's Tournament last spring did
not know that hotels and cafes at
Billings are unfair, the fault is their
| own, the facts have been published
a long time in the Butte Labor News,
and circulars have been sent out,
Union labor knows how to find out
whether a hotel or cafe is fair and
also where to secure necessary in
| formation. So much for number one,
Second: Brothers, eff you were in
a strange town, and someone told
you "that the hotel you were in was
scab, whether you had stayed over
night and eaten meals, what would
you or any other good Union man
do? Regardless of how you got the
information, you would tell the man.
ager frankly that you do not patron
ize scab hotels, and check out Their
and there, and would take some
pleasure in being able to do it, Of
course. The facts as related above
disclose that Mr.. Hodges knew be-
fore he went to the Grand that il
was scab, knew it a year ago; knew
it before he registered. What did the
Butte coach do? Is it anymore of {
responsibility" to keep boys in {
Union hotel than a scab joint, or tc
feed them at a Union cafe? The
question answers itself. Mr.. Hodges
was not notified late in the day, but
before he registered, as he is well
aware; but if what he says were true
which it is not, he should have
moved out. Mr.. Hodges knew who
was, and my attitude was correct
and he showed his contempt for or
gained labor when he hung up his
phone as he did. An important mat
ter like this cannot be dismissed in
this way.
Third. These arguments by Mr.
Hodges do not justify his behavior,
nor mitigate them, but rather aggra-
Yates them. 1t shows that at Great
Falls he "favors' labor, but that in
Billings, he knowingly and deliber-
ately patronized scab hotels and eat
ing houses. Perhaps there is a rea-
son; but it does not explain why he
patronizes scab places in Billings
1t is my honest belief that his atti-
tude toward organized labor is more
sincere at Billings than in Great
Falls. This is the real test. If mem
bers of organized labor, which l dom