Milford chronicle., 1937-08-13
The Wind Is Shifting
By ]. E. Jones

The American people are not cas-
lily aroused, but there are signs IN
the wind that they are getting SICK
and tired of some of the things that
have been happening along the labor
front.
1t has seemed discouraging Tor
months that the great American
public seemed to condone the mac
tfyity of spineless public Officials. IL
seemed, for a time, that while rec
cenizing the rights of labor to col
lective bargaining, that the pubic
neither knew nor cared what meth
ods were used by various labor or
ganizers, or whether or not the
rights of the man who wanted 10
work were disregarded.
But apparently the wind is chang
ing its direction. Suddenly we ma
the politicos, whose ears have Deen
glued to the ground we may be sure,
changing their tactics. Do you sup
pose that they just happened to
change their minds? Do you imagine
that it was after long study and
meditation that they decided that the
man who wanted work needed pro-
lection, that perhaps the owners OF
property had few rights after ALL
and that maybe sitdown strikes were
illegal?
Not on your life! They have an
eve on the next elections. They are
lust one Jump ahead of the parade,
and that parade is not going In the
direction some of them thought 1t
was going a few months ago. They
see now that the wage earners, the
farmers and the small business men
are getting fed up on the way things
have been going The politicos didn't
get their ideas from their colleagues
in Washington, or at the state capi-
tails; they got them in the form OF
letters from their constituents In the
rural areas, and in the form OF re-
ports of things that were happen
ing in the small towns and small
cities.
The first dim suspicion that per-
haps not everybody was going to
cheer for the sitdown crowd came at
Hershey, Pa, where few hundred
solid farmers showed the sitdowners
a trick or two. Then there was that
little affair at Monroe, Michigan,
where the wage earners stood up
and fought for their right to work
and to earn a living for their famil-
les. Youngstown and Johnstown
showed again that few men cannot
rob thousands of their jobs If gangs
ter methods are ruled out. In these
and in scores of other communities
all over the country small business
men, professional men and the aver
age citizens have seen the danger
and have expressed their feelings to
their local officials in no uncertain
manner.
So now we find that various Gov
ernors are seeing the advisability of
using firm hand against the antics
of radical organizers; state legisla-
tors are seeking means of eliminat-
ing the sitdown strike, which Miss ,
Perkins has finally conceded to be [
Illegal; and that the real friends OF /
labor are loudest of all in their de- !
mands that steps be taken to make I
the unions responsible for their ac- {
Lions. They see the danger to labor c
Of a situation such as that in the
case of General Motors, where s
wildcat" strikes have caused more I
han 200 separate shutdowns violat- 4
ng the agreement signed on March t
I2. Y d
The lesson of the last few weeks Il
s that no man can ignore the power t
If public opinion, particularly when 6
t is voiced by people In small COM c
all over the land. Not for a
ong. c