Montana labor news., 1938-12-22
On The (apiioI's Cuff

report is due IN the Senate on Janu-
airy 3 of next year and the task it
set for itself has nearly been COM
pleted.
The committee started hearings on
August 81, 1886. Since then it has
conducted hearings regularly, prob
ing into specific cases of violations
of civil liberties as soon as its in
vestigators could gather and organ
ize the material and whenever the
Senate could be persuaded to loosen
the purse strings.
During the hearings the committee
heard many tales of violence perpe-
trated upon labor organizers or
members Of labor organizations by
ruthless corporations and their hire
lings. Sometimes this violence was
done in the name of Flaw and order"
More often no excuse was attempted.
AS the committee plunged deeper
and deeper into its work, it heard
evidence that corporations were
taking note of its activities, that they
were soft-pedalling some of the raw
er stuff, that labor spy agencies and
professional strikebreaking outfits
were bankrupt because of lack of
business, that private espionage
agencies maintained by some of the
bigger outfits were being dismantled
and that the flower of civil liberties
was here and there blooming where
before the very Seeding was ground
into the earth.
The thought arises, as the prospect
of the conclusion of the committee
work approaches, as to what will
happen to civil liberties after there
is no more Senate committee? Have
the labor spy agencies reformed?
Have the industrialists who gave
birth to and nurtured the spy and
strikebreaking agencies reformed?
There is no evidence on this score
in the files of the Senate civil liber-
ties committee.
1t is true that as a result of the
momentary respite from the oppres-
sive practices disclosed, labor has
been able to push its organization
and extend industrial democracy to
areas in which industrial autocracy
was the rule. But there are areas,
such as in little STEEL" in which the
labor spy and hired thug can be ex-
pected to u rampant once the COM
mittee passes out of existence.
What legislation the committee
will recommend to Congress as the
result of its labors is not yet known,
Sen. LaFollette prog, Wis.,, chair
man of the committee, has expressed
his conviction that the National La
Dor Relations Act needs strengthen 6
ing. /
If employers obeyed the act the G
violations of civil liberties and the a
denials of labor's rights might cease.
But daily resolutions are passed and i
demands are made for repeal or c
amendment-and by amendment is |
meant the emasculation-of the labor p
law.
Laws, in themselves, mean nothing Il
as the committee has so well shown. g
One of its most dramatic incidents Il
was the exposure of the police force il
of Chicago in the most brutal and il
barbaric denial of civil rights in our c
day. Laws, to men like Tom Girdler il
and Henry Ford, are meaningless a
words on scraps of paper. b
But a committee of the Senate of q
the United States is a different mat n
ter. Not that the power of the SEN n
ate is respected but its hearings are q
open to the public and something of r
what is said in the hearings gets into \
the newspapers.
People from coast to coast find out
what kind of an organization Re- :
Steel maintains to keep its !
workers happy" and they try to :
reconcile that conglomeration of =
stool pigeons and thugs with the :,
pious statements of policy appearing =
in neighboring newspaper columns :,
Labor organizations discover the fl
spies in their midst and likewise dis If
cover how the Citizens Committee, O,
ostensibly formed by the music clubs OF
and professional associations in the h.
community, is in reality a creature of ii
he National Association of Manu- Fl
lecturers to which, in all probability, n,
he local big shot manufacturer be- Sc
.ongs. in
By far the majority of the people in
this country earn their livings
With their hands. They are the ma Ia
ority of the voters and they are the ii
we, the people" about whom the ic
congressman asking for reelection d,
orates. With the knowledge of what st
S going on, of how vigilante COM m
nittees are formed, in their hands
.ivil liberties will be safe-far safer oc
han in the hands of the learned re
judges. e,
No better addition could be made di
o the standing committees Of the re
than a committee on civil hi
iberties, given powers and funds to "
before it for questioning those Sc
Who try to deny others the rights it
Guaranteed by the constitution. Ger al
ainly it could be more useful than U,
ONE of the present standing COM be
n~ittees. Sc
"We're entering a new era in gr