The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-11-13
Fair Enough
Nv wEsTBROoK PEGLER

NEW YORK, Nov u. - Some Americans
have been disappointed in President Truman
remarks on the conduct of the union move
ment since the shooting war ended. AS mea-
sure of cheer to them, and they include mil
lions of workers, would ask how long it has
been since a President of the United States
said anything like the following:
Labor (by which he meant the union execu-
tives) must find ways within its own ranks of
cutting down absenteeism, reducing turnover
avoiding jurisdictional disputes and the wild
cat strikes
"There can be no moral or economic justi-
fication for stopping production while rival or
CARNATIONS contend with each other. Labor
has particular interest in this matter for
nothing is so destructive Of public confidence
in the motives of trade unionism as a juris-
dictional strike"
IF labor and mana gernent find that thew
cannot come to agreement way must be
found Of resolving their differences without
stopping production
Some industrial strife was expected by the
American people in this period of adjustment.
But I'm sure they never expected anything
like the amount of strife which has been
threatened. And know the American people
do not like it.
"Our country is worried about our industrial
relations. It has a right to be. The worry is
reflected in the halls of Congress in the form
of all kinds of legislation
Representatives of labor and management
are meeting here to settle differences in the
public interests. On this conference have been
based many high hopes of the American
people"
''The outcome'' of the conference rests with
management and labor, "But as in all other
public affairs the outcome also rests with the
American people"
Here we find, for the first time in u years,
recognition by the President of 'the people,
''the public,'' 'the public interests" and our
country, as party with a supersedink in
terest in the colossal braWls and appalling
vandalism of organized armies of rioters and
the Hitlerian terror of the picket mobs and
night riding union vigilantes. Mr.. Truman
plainly recognized ''the public as a power
above all the union bosses with their billions
of loot.
There are now, at lavish estimate ten
million union members. A large proportion of
them hate the union bosses who, under privi-
leges granted by the late President Roosevelt,
rounded them up in manner Of the African
slave traders Even if it were granted that
they were all willing members they would still
be minority of tthe public" and 1.-The Ameri-
can people," That many of them would gladly
escape if they could is proved by thousands
of union contracts with employers calling for
the closed shop, maintenance Of membership
and the check-off of dues. The union masters
do not trust these subjects. The masters adj
NIT this in their negotiations for these yellow
dog clauses and Mr.. Truman knows the des-
perate hatred of millions of the subjugated cit
liens toward the Moreschis, the Petrillos and
the Dan Tobins who presume to speak
for them but live 1uxuriously and royalty aloof
and despise their petition as the bleatings of
sheep.
But II know the American people do not
like it," the President said and here he was
speaking of the patient, wretched worried and
abused majority of the nation completely out
side the unions which only recently has begun
to realize that it exists and has greater powers
than all the organized wreckers and sluggers.
1t can lick them in the streets with tire chains
and clubs if it comes to that and it can lick
them in Congress- as President Truman very
plainly apprehended. Moreover the non-union
majority will constitute "our country and can
beat them at the polls all the way from town
elections to 1948.
The late Roosevelt invariably spoke of the
unions and more particularly the brutalitarian
Hitlers of the AT. Of L. and the C1O as
'labuh' and contrived for his own benefit a
false premise that all American workers were
either members of these incorrigib1e national
gangs or, failing that, were non-members on
ly because they were inundated by evil
capitalists. These capitalists, whose sons fell
IN abundant share as corporals and ieutenants
in the war, he described as 'tories,' fit
name for some of his ancestors, and as well
fed clubmen'' at time when he, himself
was a member of five Of the most expensive
and snobbish New York clubs with racial and
religious verbotens
President Humans expressions give hope of
emancipation not only by law following the
inevitable failure of the present conference,
but by slow reputation of the union tyrants
already family perceptible in state papers
from the White House. 1t is no cynicism that
persuades me that this conference must fail
but experience, knowledge of the law and I'M
ion practices and morose realization that
the pompous irnposters who currently essay
to speak for labor are incapable of that re-
form which is prerequisite of individual free
dom, peace and production.
The cure will be wrought by a revival Sin
the people, of the knowledge that their own
rights and powers are superior to the privi-
leges of the organized minority.
In this connection have been reminded of
a dictum of the late Oliver Wendell Holmes,
a past part-time idol Of the organized goons,
which is appropriate to the cause Of 1.-THE
people,
when the power of either capital or labor
is exerted in such way as to attack the life
OF the community he wrote "Those who seek
their private interests at such cost are public
enemies and should be dealt with as such.''