The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1940-02-22
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hdtchet Out
The Truth
. AGE OF FIGHTING
. FOR RIGHTS
. LABOR FIGHTS INFANTILE
. HELPS THE UNEMPLOYED

This is an age of fighting. Fight
this; fight that; fight every day, for
something, or against something.
Labor is-has to be-in most Of the
fights.
The age-old fights, for basic rights.
Always they come first. They are by
no means finished.
Employers soak in education slowly.
They have their rights, but are slow
to yield to others.
The barons won their rights at
Runnymede, but long years were to
pass before the serfs and workers got
even the most elemental of theirs.
Even today the wars go on, for
rights, for freedoms, so that all the
decency of life may go to the few.
An even within itself labor gets
tangled up on the same issue - to
whom shall go the rights.
X X X
We speak of the war in Europe;
actually there are several. And more
in Asia.
So, labor, resenting imperialism,
despotism, autocracy, joins to help the
victims of these evils.
Labor helps the Firms, helps the
Czechs. helps the Poles, helps the Chi
nese; raises great sums of money for
victims and refugees.
Labor fights infantile paralysis,
gives to the Red Cross, helps the un-
employed.
THERE is NO GOOD FIGHT IN
WHICH ORGANIZED LABOR is
NOT ENGAGED.
This is as it should be and as it
must be, for labor in unions is first Of
all an idealistic movement.
The opponents of unions see only
that labor seeks better conditions of
employment, better wages, shorter
work-days.
The vast contributions of labor to
the social progress of the nation are
too often lost to view-but there they
stand, growing series of monuments
to, the idealism Of organized labor and
its vital concern for the betterment of
human life Oh every front.
Labor talks too little, perhaps, about
its far-sighted, constructive efforts to
make America better land--a free
land, happier land.
Just so, the critic sees the $12 wage,
or the $14 wage of the building me-
chanic, but doesn't see the long and
weary days when there is no work.
Maybe the hourly wage is higher
than it should be, maybe there's a way
of forcing higher annual income out
of a lower rate per day, but nobody
has found it yet and those who are
the severest critics are the ones who
have given least to finding a better
plan.
Against all the criticisms stands the
fact that in every great national crisis
it has been proclaimed on every hand
''labor is our first line of defense"
Even old Iron Pants (as he likes to
call himself, rather fatuously) Hugh
Johnson gave forth that acclaim when
he was busy with the draft in the
World War.
And if Westbrook Pegler, tainted
with a certain mental jaundice, roots
out some evil with his bitter pounding,
let that be to his credit (if and when
he does), but where is his recognition
Of the great contribution of the unions
to the sound and solid welfare of the
United States?
1t is sad thing when men see only
with one eye.
In New England there are public
monuments to labor's great contribu-
tions in the establishment of our pub
lie school system.
Whatever may have been the
slight and temporary alterations,
labor has come down from the
very first days of unions, fighting
over the whole broad field for hui
man rights, human freedom, de-
mocracy and better life for all.
If corporate wealth survives it will
be because labor has compelled mod
erations that make corporate wealth
servceable and not purely an engine
of exploitation.
AS the warm days of spring draw
near, to warm the earth again into
new life, let these be things for con-
temptation.
1t isn't labor that wills the murder,
the devastation, the horrible mutia-
ton of civilization.
Labor fights FOR life, not for it's
destruction.