Montana labor news., 1938-03-31

In Europe it has long been pos
sible to buy for a small sum books
of past and present. Not so in the
United States. But now Modern
Age Books, Blue Seal, Gold Seal
and Red Seal is making available
books new and old at 25, IS and so
cents, the volume. Success to the
sponsors of this enterprise.
MEN Who Lead Labor" is No. 5
of Gold Seal Books at 35 cents. The
authors IT eager, scholarly journal
lists who give us here sketches of
men who guide labor's forces today
in the United States. William Green,
William Hutchinson, Edward F. Nc
Grady, John L. Lewis, Haywood
Broun, A. Philip Randolph, Harry
Bridges receive each a sparkling
chapter, followed by briefer treat
ment of Giant Killers in recent
struggles for recognition and organ
ization on the part of labor.
Through the whole book moves
whit. the authors call "the ghost of
Gompers'' which is continued in such
men as President Green of A. F.
of L., William Hutchinson of United
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Join
ers of America, and opposed by
John L. Lewis and others. Comp
ers had desired, as l get it, ID no
separate political part for labor but
dependence of labor upon organiza-
ton within its own ranks and the
two old parties where government
had to be concerned, furnishing
enemies and r%ewarding friends in
either party; (2) arbitration and
Cancellation with employers rather
than force, avoiding strikes at al
most any cost; (3) unionization by
crafts, thereby allowing all sorts of
determinations as to ranks and skills
among workers and making little
place for any organization of I'M
skilled workers. These attitudes,
our authors seem to think, are out
NODDED by time and circumstance.
John L. Lewis and his colleagues
recognize their passing and would
act accordingly. In major indus
tries labor has become heavily I'M
skilled and we should organize in
%dustrially, Working with the two
old parties seems a defeatist atti-
tude. Do we need a political party
that is frankly a labor party? Might
we have a farmer-labor party? Shall
we admit that we do have a class
society and abandon Gompers' fic-
ton to the contrary? Lewis is ap-
parently on the point of taking this
leap. Others are, 1 judge.
The book raises many questions.
If organization is made by indus
tries is distinction between skilled
and unskilled workmen to be given
up? VIII there be a leveling up of
the unskilled to the skilled or the
reverse? Skilled labor is still not
gone from our industrial society.
What is to become of competition
here?
A. Philip Randolph is selected as a
representative of the negroes. I like
him about best of all the men treated
in this book. He speaks with con-
trolled warmth on a most touch ques-
ton. Are the negroes to be admitted
to unions on an equality with the
whitesl why" he asks, Should a
negro be penalized for being black?
Why should anybody be penalized
for something over which he has no
control? We are living in a time
when there should be do division
of race, religion, creed or national
ity." So have said many men since
the time of Alexander the Great.
Have we ever meant it when it
comes to economic advantage? Well
anyway Randolph's union of Pull
man Porters has won a charter from
organized labor. Reading of him
and the way he has Jared in ma
tional counsels of labor does not
give n much hope for equality of
laborers organized or unorganized.
1t does give one admiration for men
like Randolph himself.
The book is a plea for stronger
unionization along industrial lines,
the promotion of a labor party, rec
ognition of classes in our society,
the strike as an effective weapon of
Labor, ADLER men in places of power
in Labor.
l wonder why the pictures of the
men are nearly all caricatures. Only
Randolph escapes this slur and he
not wholly. Have Minton and Stu
art no respect for labor's leaders?
Broun and Randolph command our
hearty admiration as we read. None
of the others does, except perhaps
Bridges. Bruises Hutcheson,
Salesman" McGrady, Samson"
Lewis, "Gompers' Ghost" Green, all
appear more or less contemplate.
Lewis, the authors think, may have