Evening star., 1937-03-28

Sftbo oC't 500 oNooC4HCht +" GStCS W
,Dhich ,piU appear in The Euening
Star.
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.
~ My soothsayers with clair
Voyant powers can know
whether this outbreak Of sit
~ down strikes is just another
dime chain-letter fad, or the fore
runner of the industrial revolution.
If in week or month or a sea-
son it vanishes, like other epidemic
crazes in America, that will be that.
But if, as it seems, the sit-doWn strike
is symptom of new mental attitude
of the American industrial worker, the
country is facing some kind of revo-
luton. Probably, because the Amer
lean breads violence, it will be peace
full revolution.
Mass emotions do not seem to be
stirred now sufficiently widely or deep
ly enough to produce a profound
breach of the peace, accompanied by
organized turmoil and bloodshed.
Nothing like the bitter rancor that
preceded the War of the Sixties exists
today The obvious thing about the
sit-doWn strike is the gay, careless way
in which the strikers make it a frolic.
But back of the festal attitude of the
workers is a deep-seated conviction in
their hearts that, in taking over in
dustrial property in which they are
working, they are within their rights.
The rights they are defending they
deem as sacred as the rights of the
owners who are dispossessed Now,
what are those rights that labor is de-
Tending which underly this whole dis
pute? Fundamentally, the invaders
are striking for the right to work.
They are trying to clothe that right
with legal status. Instinctively, they
feel that their right to job is
property right Also, they feel that
the terms on which they shall work
shall be determined by collective bar
gaining. The kind of collective bar
gaining which the strikers would en-
force is collective bargaining under
the aegis of the closed shop.
Must Perceive Basic Aim.
Until America understands this
basic aim of labor and understands
1t in its deeply revolutionary signifi-
cance-or evolutionary, if the matter
shall be peacefully worked out-the
country will not go far toward solv-
ing the current industrial problem.
Today, under the common concep-
ton of property rights, the tools of
industry belong exclusively to the
owner. His fee simple title gives him
every possible right to what he calls
his property. He can use it. He can
refuse to use it. He can refuse to let
others use it or he can destroy it at
his own will, following his own whim.
Now, the worker says in effect all
property rights in industry-ln all
industry--are affected by their pub
lie use. Industry, under this theory,
generically becomes a public utility.
Therefore, as the rights of the con-
sumer in property dedicated to pub
lie utilities have gradually broadened
until the owner has no conflicting
rights which the public is bound to
respect, so we may be approaching
a new phase. new conception of the
rights of property in industry. Labor
seems to be elboWing into certain new
property rights today in America as
the consuming public began shoulder
ing into the rights of the owners OF
the railroads so years ago in this coun-
try.
Now, then, let us consider this
theoretical case, concretely. Here is
Walter Chrysler, formerly of Kansas,
a two-fsted, hard-working, long
sighted man, who begins as a railroad
worker or something of the sort,
forges ahead, has a knack for ma
chinery, buys with his well-earned
savings . plant where he makes auto
mobiles. 1t is his? He walks through
It with his hands behind him, pats the
steel, gloats over the cam-wheels and
levers and says: This have done.
1t is mine BY mine, 1 mean that
am the boss here I hire and I fire
whom like, and if they don't like it,
be damned to them"
Democracy Enters Issue.
But hold on! We have an election,
and here comes all the pent-up dreams
of labor for so years that the work.
ers have certain underlined, but in
alienable, rights in the job, rights that
the owner is bound to respect, rights
as good as his fee simple title. Well,
then-this election confirms the work.
ers in that hypothesis and they add
up in the ballot box more than
Walter Chrysler does. Democracy
enters into the abstract Of title-a
mean and contentious claimant
So Mr.. Chrysler, formerly Of Kan
sas. bats his eyes and says: "1s this
America? Has q man no rights?
What's become of the Constitution"
And labor says: "Just so, Mr..
Chrysler. You say but there is new
right in the ofting, the right to work.
We propose to establish that right
rs definitely as your fee simple title
perhaps in year. perhaps in decade,
perhaps in a generation. Calm down
now, Walter, we are not going to
destroy the ballot box, the right of
free speech, free assemblage and the
writ of habeas corpus. 1t is not going
to be communism or fascism, but
the American democratic expression
OF new industrial relation-we want
to break it gently to you, Mr. Chrysler,
but this Is what we shall call for
short-the New Deal"
To which Walter Chrysler deposes
and says: Like He'll you will" and
hires him good lawyer!
Let us sight across the past and
see how far we have come as Ma
ton toward this new conception of
the laborer's right to work. The first
step was taken when the American
courts began giving labor the right
to organize in unions. Then 20 years
ago labor, under Samuel Gompers,
began the campaign in the conven-
tions Of both parties to include plat