The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1937-06-24
WHEN GOVERNMENT GOES
ANARCHISTIC

In the United States Senate two days
ago Senator J. w. Bailey of this State at
tackled the action of the Governor of Penn
sylvania in closing the steel plants at
Johnstown.i Senator Bailey said:
According to the newspapers the facts are that
the industries were running that thousands of
workers were carrying out their work and that they
did not wish to strike. On the other hand those
who wished to prevent them from working
not succeeding, and in desperation the CIO organ
lied a movement of 10000 persons from other
places to come into Johnstown, not to aid men who
were working but to aid men who were preventing
men from working.
upon the declaration of martial law and the
suspension of the industries upon the order of the
governor the purpose of the strikers was accom-
plished The workers who wished to work were
prevented from working. Thereupon the high COM
mand of the CIO considerably called off the in
vasion.
''In taking this action, the governor of Pennsyl-
vania took sides in a strike, not with the workers
who were at work, but with an organization which
was trying to keep them from working. The pro-
per course would have been to call out the militia
for the purpose of protecting in their right to
work, not for the purpose of aiding those who were
engaged in preventing men from working The
right to work is of the liberties of our land.
In this instance the militia and the powers of the
State of Pennsylvania were used by the governor
TO suppress a great liberty.
Having a choice to make he made the choice
on the side of those who had decided to take the
rights of men into their own hands In this con-
nection the address of retiring President Angel of
Yale University on Sunday is solemn warning to
US all l hope it will be widely read The only
compensation in this situation is that Governor
Earle has indicated clearly to the American people
what sort of president he would be in event he
should be nominated and elected His candidacy is
practically announced"
Senator Bailey evidently has a clear idea
of what has transpired at Johnstown and
of the present situation there. 1t has been
established beyond question that approx
mately fourteen thousand of the fifteen
thousand men employed i'm the steel plants
there were working, or standing ready to
work, when Governor Earle closed the
plants. Unprecedented observers who went
through the plants before the closing, esti-
mated that they were operating at 70 per
cent. of normal, which was a remarkable
condition in view of the reign of lawless-
ness and terrorism to which the workers
and people of Johnstown had been subject
ed from the beginning of the trouble.
The facts are, as has been pointed out
in the press of the country, that the Johns
town strike had collapsed and the effect of
Governor Earle's action was to make it eff
fective in closing the plants after John
Lewis gang had lost the strike because an
overwhelming majority of the workers re-
fused to quit their jobs.
The same conditions on modified scale
are seen in Ohio, where Governor Davey
is using the militia ostensibly to control the
situation, after weeks of dilly-dallying and
shilly-shallying with anarchy. He has or
dered that workers be allowed to continue
their work in operating plants and that
plants closed by strikes remain closed.
Chief executives of Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Illinois and Michigan, working hand in
hand and shoulder to shoulder with their
buddy, John Lewis, and his cohorts, have
permitted conditions of Instruction and
civil war to continue to the point where
State and local governments and the pow
er of the courts have, for all practical pur-
noses of maintaining law and order and
law enforcement, been ,overthrown and
have ceased to fupction. -.