Montana labor news., 1944-05-11

In the light of Warren's record, labor
see the bid for national political power
of any team including him as a menace
to victory in the war and a promise of
breadlines and chaos in the peace. Know
ing him as a bitter and unrelenting foe
of unions, they see the COP with him
as keynoter geared for the destruction
of organized labor on a national scale.
Warren was Hoover's campaign mana
ger in 1882, and in 1896 tried to per-
suade the Republicans to nominate him
again. In that year Warren was also
district attorney of Alameda county,
where he prosecuted one of the most
vicious labor frameups on record-the
King-Ramsay Conner case. He succeed
ed in getting Earl King, Ernest Ramsay
and Frank ]. Conner, maritime union
leaders, convicted for murder of the
chief engineer of the S. S. Point Lobos
on framed evidence by a h~and-picked
jury before a judge who once had been
his own assistant. Overwhelming evil
dence indicate that the case was de-
liberately timed by the waterfront en-
ployer groups to discredit the union in
the maritime strike and wage negotia-
tons then in progress.
AS state attorney general in 1910 War
rem did a piece Of political work for a
coalition of Associated Farmers, bankers,
shipowners and employer organizations
plotting to outlaw strikes and curtail
rights under the Wagner act with an
insidious legislative measure called the
California labor relations act. He also
had a hand in the anti-union hot cargo
bill, and on the side threw a ruling that
unemployed workers. would be thrown off
relief rolls if they paid union dues.
Powerful force in the state senate at
that time was the Associated Farmers,
exposed as a fascist organization by the
LaFollette committee. This group was
backed up by Warren in its fight against
the Farm Security Administrator, the
NLRB and the right Of organized work.
ers and farm laborers to boycott and
picket.
Under Warren as governor, the Cali
fornia senate labor committee brought
forth one of the worst union incorpora-
ton bills introduced in any legislature.
This was backed by employers, Associat-
ed Farmers and Warren's Republican
henchmen in deliberate violation of an
agreed wartime truce on anti-labor bills.
United action by AFL, CLIO and railroad
.brotherhoods caused the bill to be tabled.
To labor, warren's state government is
most glaring in its complete failure to
meet wartime responsibilities. In the
words of the executive board of the state
CLIO: "A situation has been created in
which official California is dragging its
feet in the war effort. And the inertia
of the state apparatus has hampered
the work of the federal agencies in
California"
With the housing situation extremely
critical in this war boom state, with
child care unsolved and juvenile delin-
ouencv. and racial and minority prob
lens pressing, Warren called a special
session Of thu legislature-for the single
purpose Of o%verhauling the state penal
system. The legislature did little more
than nothing to help soldiers vote in the
state. Hindering the war effort, 1t asked
for an inflationary increase in farm
prices. tried to bury a state fund of
s500,O0 due 10 be released for child care
facilities, relaxed all child labor and
school attendance laws in the state,
passed taxes relieving highest income
groups, and asked Congress to abandon
war tine.
With his eye on the 1914 elections,
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