Montana labor news., 1945-08-30
THEY CALLED IT
UN-AMERICAN
BY HOWARD FAST
CReprinted from Readers Scope via
Federated Press

(Reprlnted from scope via
Federated Press
In so many words, the working folk
OF the city we're tired of being pushed
around; they were tired of being gov
erned by politicians who though only
of politics and graft and never OF the
people and what the people needed and
wanted.
The working people in this city built
the houses and laid the streets; they
worked in the ~foundries, at the FORCES
and in the mills; the clothes the people
wore were the products of their hands,
as were the books. the newspapers, the
plumbing and the furniture. However,
all that had been taken for granted these
many years, and it was only recently
that the working people had come to
think about those things.
And when they came to think about
them, their thinking was transformed
into action. They looked at the schools
where their children were taugn-sup-
posedly-and found the schools were a
mockery. Why, the schools did not even
teach the history of their country as
they knew that history to be; and they
knew the history well, by their own
experience: twice had the older ones
among them taken up arms in the serv-
ice Of their country. They looked at
their homes and found they were living
in novels. They looked at the wage stu
alton and found that while prices had
gone up steadily, their wages did not
rise cO-rrespondingly.
At that time, at first, their unions
weren't very strong. Unions were a new
thing, a strange thing-although there
had been unions before; here, in this
city, they were fairly new. The news
papers dashed out at the new unions as
a foreign Importation; the union leaders
were called vicious agitators and foes
of American democracy. Every vile
SANDER that could be invented was in
vented and hurled against these work
ing men who were forming the trade
unions.
The working people, however, were not
~intimidated. When all of the newspa-
pers turned against them, they raised
money at mass neutrality-suspicious. little
money-and established their own press.
Presently, they used the strike weapon.
n industry after industry they struck,
and each time they won a little more,
shorter working hours, better pay, better
working conditions.
NOW all of this wa in a period when
they stood alone, when the strike was
their only weapon-and in this period
they could not even think Of political
action to give them the social and po-
litical gains they had thought Of. But
then something happened. A great dem
ocratic president was elected-a man in
the full tradition of Jeffersonian de-
mocracy.
After his election, they waited to see
what he would do. He did a lot. Right
and left, he struck out against reaction,
against entertainment, against all the
forces in the nation who we're working
for the destruction of the nation. And
he was not alone.
1t is true that part of big business was
against him, but the majority Of bust
ness was for him, just as the huge ma
jority of the working people and the
farmers were for him Most of the press
was against him; the press called him a
dictator; they said he would bring ruin
and revolution on the nation; they viii
fled him in every way they knew-but
none of it took the people in.
1t was after the president took office
that the working men in this city we
speak OF began to think in terms Of po-
litical action. Under the leadership Of
the new president, a period of national
unity and coalition set in and organ
lied labor decided that if it entered the
political arena now it could count on a
broad and solid support. This move
ment took place all over the nation, but
it was specially true in this city.
In this city, labor held a great mass
meeting and launched itself as a political
The forces of reaction organized
gangs of hoodlums to break up meetings
and to attack working men on the street;
but labor went ahead with its plans
Delegates were elected to a citywide con-
and the convention drew up a