Montana labor news., 1938-12-22

vitalizing a democracy that threatens
to become chains and letters on their
common body. Democracy, we well
know, means different things to
different people, but to increasing
millions of American workers it
means the CLIO.
Every active union member in
Montana should read "Labor's New
Millions" The CLIO is on the spot
just now, with the interest of the
entire nation conferred on it because
of the terrible need for unity in the
labor movement. When | say it is
on the spot, | do not mean that it
is on trial for its life. But people
somehow look to the CLIO to take
the leadership in this critical time
and achieve the difficult task of
unity. For some reason or reasons
no one expects much of the parent
body from which it split.
And that is why laboring people
must be up on the CLOS record
and its achievement. There is no
lack of misinformation and distor-
ton of information from persons
and groups who do not wish to see
labor united. On the side of clarity,
Mrs. Vorse's book stands solid and
authentic. An able novelist and a
tireless journalist long devoted to
labor's cause, she has personally fol-
lowed the surging growth of this
peoples reaching in new ways to
claim their democratic heritage.
Across the continent-Akron, Flint,
Detroit, Chicago, Youngstown, Lawr-
ence, Denver, San Francisco-she
has followed the awakening of labor,
reported its struggle and been
wounded in its battles. Her book is
long and a little sprawling, as is the
struggle it describes.
She tells of an impressive number
of victories and gains. The success
full organization of rubber, autos,
steel, aluminium, flat glass, cement,
oil. The vast gains made among
the longshoremen, seamen, and
woodworkers. The brilliant strikes
in autos and rubber and the gar
ment industries; the unheard-of
agreement with U. S. Steel. The
heroic defeat in Little Steel. The
millions of unorganized workers or
gained; the rise in wage scales and
living standards. The enriching OF
workers lives through a new vital
ity and a new hope in the union
movement.
Yet she does not list gains only,
In spite of her enthusiasm for the
new peoples fight, she is quick and
cool about admitting mistakes, errors
in judgment, excuses in ambition,
She is calm about ~pro-rating the
blame for labor's split. And her
book takes time to discuss more
than the onward drive of the CLIO.
Several of the most Illuminating
chapters discuss the National Labor
Relations Board, the LaFollette Civil
Liberties Committee, Labor's Non
Partisan League, and several of the
latest techniques in strikebreaking,
such as the Mohawk Valley formula
and vigilantism. In these chapters
Mrs. worse emphasizes basic facts
for American workers: that capt.
talistic business is an implacable foe
of unions; that back-to-work move
ments are strikebreaking devices
sponsored by employers; that in
dustry spends more money fighting
unions than it would have to spend
if it recognized them; that labor
must fight for everything it gets, and
cannot depend on militia or national
guardsmen to function in it's behalf.
The story of the CLIO and of the
awakening of Americas laboring
millions is a full and complicated
story, and Mrs. Worse has told il
fully. In the excitement of telling
the dramatic story of what has hap
pened, she has not neglected to dis
cuss such matters as the new social
attitudes that are emerging with the
continued labor advance, the new
methods being developed to meet
with unemployment and lapses in
union membership, the new ways in
which the march of labor is truly a
peoples molding of democracy.
And while we ponder the signifi-
canoe of a few rallies from Democrat
to Republican banners, we may well
remember John l.. Lewis's words of
July 6, 1886:
LET him who will, be he economic
tyrant or sordid mercenary, pit his
strength against this mighty upsurge
of human sentiment now being
crystallized in the hearts of thirty
millions of workers who clamor for
the establishment of industrial demo-
cracy and for participation in its
tangible fruits. He is a mailman or
a fool who believes that this river
of human sentiment, flowing as il