Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1938-12-11

wise in the case of the building
trades unions, then taxpayers will
surely be justified in demanding that
it give over its housing program,
since its participation in that pro-
gram apparently is adding to the
corruption and doing little to i'm
prove the actual housing situation.
These are the only conclusions
which one can draw from Mr..
StevensonS article. In his own
words
Indeed. if you look behind the
propaganda barrage laid down to
batter the public into believing that
the (housingD programmes are
heaven-sent, you find they are
founded on a policy of evasion, of
concealment, of deliberately mis-
leading the people concerning ex-
penditure of their funds. The reason
is that these many years the Govern
ment has been bowling before pressure
and rackets which have so inflated
costs that any sincere attempt at
low-cost housing is myth. Officials
admit this privately. Yet, because
organized labor is involved, the
officials not only must publicly
ignore such abuses. but must &C
tually countenance them. The Gov
eminent has considered it politically
wiser to fool the public by con-
cealing facts about programme
which evidence shows contains
elements of national bankruptcy
than fool with union labor :"
AS to actual tactics of labor, Mr..
Stevenson says that the workers
are not to blame for the thuggery
which goes on, but are victimized
themselves by their union leaders.
Terrorism" he says, helps keep
the workers in line. = =" And he
gives the following general descrip-
ton (substantiated by many con-
crete cases. of how the unions apply
their power to hold up the building
contractors:
with a structure half completed"
he says, "a strike is called, ostensibly
because Of 10 unions cannot agree
which should have the exclusive
right, say. to screw radiator shields
to the walls. Other unions walk
out in sympathy and the dispute
which ties up millions in invest
ments cannot be settled until the
contractor pays off," And he men,
lions the case of a strike settler"
who collected a million dollars in
two years for his services in adj
justing such labor disputes"
Now, that the Federal Govern
ment of the United States should
bow to such bandits hardly seems
possible. But the whole of Mr..
Stevenson's article bears out the
impression that it has been doing so.
It is to be hoped that his succeeding
piece will bring forward some evil
dence of a more hopeful nature.
But, on the basis of what is written
in the December Atlantic, 1t is diff
ficult to imagine what this evidence
would be.
Another worth while article in the
December Atlantic is one by Dixon
Wecter, author and teacher. The
title is "Snobbery on the Left" and
the subject is that pathetic and
dangerous assumption of superiority
by various Glasses of society which
has appeared among us in recent
years. The latest development of
this malady is among the manual
workers Chose who call themselves
simply workers." to the proud ex-
clusion of the rest of toilsome man
kind, and of their new worship
and its deliberate encouragement by
the Government Mr.. Wecter COM
ments as follows:
1.-THE ministry of art and idealism
is already busy creating a fresh
romantic interest in the worker
with his brawny strength, his virile
common sense and his supposed
passion for social Justice and the
liberation of the underdog through
out the world. Novels, plays, poems,
sermons and mural paintings show
him clear-eyed and broad think
ing, marching confidently out of
the old fogs Of capitalism into the
dawn. ="
But, adds Mr.. Wecter, unhappily,
ut Is clear that those who regard
themselves as the new masters of
the world have learned nothing
from the old annals of group selfish
ness. - While the workers
and unemployed are an anointed
people soon to inherit the earth,
''' all others belong to the old
parasitic classes bourgeois bar
barians' or 'plutocratic vultures with
their infected golden beaks,' or
else are assailed with phrases
snatched from the ether like ECO
nomic royalists,' 'die-hard tories, ,
greedy Bourbons' and princes of
privilege = ="
This wearyingly obvious strutting
Ia now being ENCOURAGED bv the