The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1943-06-10

The Miners want to come in; the
MachiniSts go out.
So goes life. Coming and going. En-
tering and departing.
| Why get excited about a coming or
a going?
No special reason at all, except that
in some of the goings and comings
certain of the eternal verities get in
vOlved
They are what need worrying about.
So, at the moment the AFL really
has something to think about.
| 1t is somewhat sad to see the Ma
chinists going away from the door.
The Machinists have had big part
in AFL history.
Pioneer Machinists did lot of the
heavy pick and shovel work of laying
out the foundations.
Some of the main timbers were laid
by Machinists.
Newcomers frequently forget about
who it was that laid the foundations.
What they want to know is whether
the roof leaks today
| vi, tilcy WALT W hIOW WlldL lHSy
can get out of the family that lives
there
But who laid the foundations and
what kind of struggles went on dur
ing the they are seldom
able to get very excited about that.
Well, young fellows, the Machinists
did lot toward making the house and
| 1x,{ Sc, Il, 10
| The Machinists have had colorful
history.
| They have been on the leftward
| track much of the time. Leftward as
we used to know it; not as we know
the term today.
The Machinists have been liberal
and even radical and they have stood
for a lot of finger pointing because
| they insisted upon saying what they
| thought about things.
They did lot of pioneer work be-
cause they weren't afraid to stand out
| in front.
There was jim O'Connell, one of the
handful of veterans who stood around
'Sdll NOIlIclS, WIFI lllell ike Jill
Duncan and Bill Mahon.
jim was called a conservative and
yet he was the kind of conservative
that would have stood back to stone
wall and let 'em plug away before he
would give up a principle.
Jim was an executive council men,
Der for years, even after Bill Johnston
f.,, hi e {l,n ,:s,t,
presidency in Il contest between con-
servatism and radicalsm.
Bill Johnston was socialist, or Il
near-socialist, but he was trades
uniOnist first
Sam GOmpers once said give me a
man who has been through the social
list party and held onto his trade union
ism. He has something in him that you
don't get otherwise"
Bill had plenty. He branched the
NIachinists into all sorts of things and
maybe it did them lot of good.
X X X
Anyway lN of people came to
about Machinists who didn't know
very much about most of the other
unions.
Bill MahOn had Il lot about him that
was of the same order when he was
active boss of the Street Carmen. Lib
erals and even radicals could get help
from him easily and so he got that
union into many things.
But to get back to the point. The
men who dug out the hole in the
ground and laid down the first heavy
timbers fought through hositlities that
the men Of today don't know anything
about They have a respect coming to
them that must not be forgotten.
DO we forget that men faced real
gllnfire in the early days and that Il
great many were killed SO that the
house of today could be built?
Well, that's how it waS-;ilong with
many Il hungry mouth and also hun
CRY heart, hungry for freedom.
Don't pass these doings with
laugh. They are possible because there