The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-09-10

There's much in the daily paper
these days about the victory of the
CIO over the employees representation
plan in the mines of the Colorado Fuel
and Iron Co., of Colorado.
There is history wound all around
this development.
Some recall that is was w. L. Mac
Kenzie King, present prime minister
of Canada who installed that company
union in the c. f. & l. mines of
Colorado.
But the great drama of the thing is
being lost.
There had been great shooting up
of the miners on strike and living in
a tent colony at Ludlow. 1t was order
ed that they be evicted from the tent
colony, as a means of getting them
back to work.
And the state guard went one night
and shot the tent colony to pieces.
The event quickly came to be known
as the Ludlow massacre.
4 x x
So horrible was the shooting that the
Rockefeller name needed some reno
waiting.
1t was the late John d. Rockefeller
who came in for the blame. Cartoonists
had been going through the era, led
by Hearst, when corporation men were
pictured with fat mid-sections, all
plastered with dollar signs. Some will
remember the Opper cartoons and
others.
The smell had got bad enough so
that the Ludlow shooting was like
lighting fuse.
And something had to be done.
Rockefeller engaged a big publicity
firm - Ivy Lee and then came Mr..
King.
Lee got Rockefeller to giving away
dimes and King got him to install
company unions. 1t wasn't a bad job,
taken all in all. 1t worked.
A great name got renovation and
today the Rockefeller family has an
entirely different conception of its
stewardship. One of them, Nelson
Rockefeller, guides our program of
Latin American friendship.
x x x
And w. L. Mackenzie King, then
young economist, went on to become a
great figure in the politics of Canada,
now the leader of that great nation.
Rockefeller interests continued to
support the employee representation
plan, not only in G. f. & L., but in
Standard Oil, while competing coal
interests, in Colorado showed the wis
dom of unionism and competing oil
companies, such as Sinclair, Cities
Service and Shell, did likewise
There were union leaders in those
days who said, wait and see-the COM
pany unions will one day become real
unions.
1t seems that they were right, even
though it has taken a long time.
Nothing is as it was; nothing ever
again will be as it was, including com
pany unionism; yes even including real
unionism.
These are days of great and mo-
mentous change.
X X X
One other thing we learn in the
news. Ships are being named for labor
leaders-the labor heroes of the past,
such as Samuel Gompers, Andrew
Furuseth, James Duncan and John
Mitchell.
That is good. Those who knew those
great and stalwart figures will be bit
thrilled by this belated hOnoring of
their memory
But how manw remember the labor
ship that went to sea in that earlier
World War.
There was a ship called the Afel for
the initials A. +. of l..
The idea was suggested by Samuel
Gompers.
The Afel sailed through the latter
years of that war and continued on in
commercial pursuits for a few years,
then to be forgotten in the heap of
postwar vessels that rOtted away in
fleets in the waters around New York
and Philadelphia. The name of the
gallant little vessel was seldom men
toned and SOon forgotten.
Let us hope these new ships, named
for labor men, will not be so soon out
of mind
The men for whom they are to be
named deserve to be remembered al