Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1944-06-17
FAIR
ENOUGH
BY Westbrook
PeeIer
PeqIer

face the proposition OF sur
rendering their freedom for in
voluntary servitude TO private
employers and slavery TO the
unions and the New Deal
political party, or going on
strike against an absolutely
iawless decree issued by Paul
McNutt.
After July /, McNutt has
said, any male civilian over IL
who leaves a nonessential Job
must 60 into essential work.
He can't take another nom
essential Job. II that job is 10
be filled at all, it must be
taken by a woman.
McNutt also has attempted
to direct all such workers into
the u. S. Employment Service
for placement in essential IN
dustries.
This USES is an evil growth
with which the general public
is little acquainted.
From its very beginning, IT
has been as a dragoonlng service
to herd unwilling civilians into
the unions.
In many places, union agents
have occupied chairs IN USES
Offices, supported by the tax
payers, or adjoining premises.
Applicants for war jobs, as a
routine matter, have been re-
quired to pay cash on the line
to the unioneers for the priv
lege of helping to win the war
on the home front.
The USES refers" applicants
TO the unions for clearance
with the understanding that if
they don't clear" by paying
initiation fees and dues, or
signing promises to pay out OF
their immediate wages some
times through the checkoff, they
won't be hired.
IN NO case is there a guar
i antee that the applicant will
hold his job after he has earned
the amount of the shakedown
plus an equal amount for him.
self.
There are always more saps
coming in and the temptation
is strong to lay off those who
have been clipped for the union
treasury and trim the new
suckers.
The USES also has assumed
the power to order independent
EMPLOYERS TO hire whomsoever
it sends them, regardless of the
applicants competence or char
acter or the employers judg-
ment of his or her personal
fitness. The individual is not
a person but a unit, or number,
a case on file.
II a worker, leaving a non
essential job, refuses to take a
Job deemed TO be essential,
however inferior the work may
be TO his intelligence and skill,
and however inferior the pay TO
his usual standards and his UNI
Voidable commitments, he
doesn't 60 TO Jail, of course; he
just goes idle, a man wasted.
and broke and hungry until
necessity breaks him down or
enough other men like him get
sore enough to tell McNutt and
the unions and the USES to go
to hell in a voice loud enough
to be heard by President Roose-
welt and Congress.
THIS is McNutts third at
Il tempt in two years to
impose a civilian labor draft
without authority from Con-
gress and in the face OF re-
peated refusals by Congress, for
good reasons, to adopt any such
draft.
It Is dishonest, as well as
illegal; for the labor shortage
is only spotty, not general, and
is due largely to artificial
causes, including the political.
The political purpose of the
decree is TO swell the member
ship OF the unions which, in
turn, will contribute out Of
their loot to Mr.. Roosevelts
fourth term campaign fund and
thus compel millions of citizens
who would regard fourth term
as a national calamity to facili-
tate that disaster.
The civilian who remains in
private, nonessential employ is
placed at the mercy of the en-
ployer. who now knows that he
may impose upon him ruth
lessly by holding over him the
threat of dismissal and refer
raj to the USES.
The only hope for the civilian
thus placed by McNutt's die
tatorial decree is that of a
sit-down strike against the gov
eminent by millions of those
private citizens so often re-
ferred TO. and so contemptu-
ously, as little people. Because
they are unorganiZed against
politics and the power Of the
Roosevelt government and its
union auxiliaries, that hope is
wan and waning.
Copyright, 1914, by United Features svnd