Laurel outlook., 1944-10-25

HAS the CIO, in setting up Mr.. Hillman's Political
Action Committee, stepped into a political BOBBY trap?
Responsible and experienced labor leaders, both in
the AFL and the CLIO, are seriously raising this question.
Throughout the labor movement, there is a growing fear
among clear-sighted labor men that the CIO, in its 1914
political strategy, has Numbered into something which is
certain to bring incalculable harm upon the whole Amer
lean trade union movement.
"Win or lose at the November polls. they believe, the
PAC has set in motion a wave of public anti-union i'll
will which will Unfortunately strike all labor unions
during the next four years.
For what the CLIO has done, in launching the PAC,
has been to throw overheard the most inviolable of Amer
lean trade union precepts. That precept has been never
to entangle the trade unions officially in the fortunes of
either of the two national political parties.
"But now, under Hilman and Murray, the Clio has
reckessy scrapped this time-tested policy. The PAC,
Tor all practical purposes, has made the CIO a subsidiary
oil the Democratic Party. With a trustfulness almost
Incredible, it has united itself with the Democratic Party
1t has placed all its political eggs i in a single poJiticai
welt.
,oi ION the the surface, such pigjn-the-pOke CIo political
policies would seem uneXpainable by any rule of trade
union experience, or even of good common horse sense.
Ever since the 1910 exit of John L. Lewis, who
understood the difficult art of using politicians without
an independent self-sustaining labor movement, after the
pattern of the AFL or the Railroad Brotherhoods. For
al practical purposes, it has been a kept labor adjunct
Of the New Deal.
"In return, it is true, the Roosevelt Administration
has showered the CIO with it's favors. In situations
where the Go has come in competition with the AFL or
other unions, it has invariably given it the breaks.
"The PAC is the unhappy product of this unnatural
marriage between the Go and the Roosevelt Administra- |
ton. When in 1913, the White House strategists deemed
II necessary to use the apparatus of the CLIO as a labor |
front for the Fourth Term draft the CIO had no alter
native but to obey. Mr.. Hilman snapped into action, and
launched the PAC. He pledged the White House to de-
liver at the ballot box the millions of unconsulted union
lists who, with New Deal aid, have been recruited into +
the CLIO. Of course, from any consideration of long range
labor interests, what the Go is doing in this campaign
is truly disastrous to American labors future.
Samuel Gompers, who was the architect of so much
that is solid and enduring in the American trade union
movement defined the accepted policy of the ALL unions
when he said:
"Our movement has not asked and will not
ask at the hands of government anything which
the workers can and should do themselves. The
movement of labor is founded on the principle
that that which we do for ourselves, individual
ly and collectively, is done best
I'm violating these principles, the present CLIO leader
is, OF course, counting future disaster for all organ !
zed labor. The tragedy of the situation is that sound !
lnlonS as well as unsOund are certain to suffer from the I
'eactlon OF public resentment which is now greeting the |
oAC. The whole labor movement may be facing a SER
Gus after-election setback, as a result of Mr.. Hllman's
maneuvers.
GAIL members are acutely and painfully aware of
he booby-trap which Mr.. Hilman has put under the feet
# American labor. AS one prominent AFL Leader ey-
.ressed it recently in off the record candor: The CTO
lousing up the whole situation for organized labor. and
We are the ones who are going to suffer-"
o. AID. ordered and paid for by Rep. State Cent. Com, Helena