The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1946-12-20
BY E. H. MANSON


Within very recent weeks, three
powerful organizations have held con-
ventions the National Association of
Manufacturers, the U. S. Chamber of
Commerce and the Farm Bureau Fed
Grafton. That the first two should
adopt resolutions intended to weaken
or destroy organized labor was to be
expected, since the more they can beat
down the wages of those whose labor
| is necessary to the operation of their
plants, the greater becomes their pro-
fits, already badly swollen. But that a
farmers organization should go even
further than the representatives of
Big Business in denunciation of its
best customers and demanding that
they be so shackled by legislation that
their earning power would be sub
stantially reduced, seems incompre-
hensible. Yet if reports of the actions
taken by the Farm Bureau Federation
at San Francisco few days ago are
correct it did just that by adopting
resolutions demanding abolition of the
closed shop, virtual repeal of the Nor
ris-La Guardia anti-injunction law and
the Wagner labor relations act, COM
pulsory incorporation of labor unions
with a public accounting of receipts
and expenditures, and worst of all, the
breaking up of larger labor groups
into small, helpless units.
They Never Learn
Carrying out this program, or any
considerable portion of it, would put
labor back to the position it occupied
about rs years ago. OF course, the fact
that labor has, through its organiza-
tions, acquired sufficient power to
remedy some of the oppressive condi-
lions under which it toiled for CEN
turtles, and has. at long last, secured
some legal protection of its rights, is
CALLING to all reactionaries, he matter
where they are found None of these
groups seem to have ever learned any
thing from either history or personal
experience.
OF the Is million organized workers,
men and women who comprise the
most intelligent part of the So million
wage earners in America as we'll as
the best paid, it is fair to assume that
at least ~ million are either the heads
of families, or are the chief support of
families. AS a member of organized
labor for many years, | have yet to |
know even one union man who wanted
to go on strike unless it was neces-
sary to use that means to redress real |
grievances. Nor have | ever known |
labor unionist who did not support the |
farmers claim to just and fair price
Tor the product of his farm. Any pre-
JUDGED farmer knows that the steadier
4 wage Garner is employed and the
better wages he receives, the more he
ian and will buy of what the farmer
produces. Any intelligent wage Garner
Knows that the better the conditions
ire under which the farmer lives, the
more he can spend for what labor pro
luces in mine, mill or factory That is
. natural law, and it is strange that
lnyone outside a hospital for the in
zane does not know it,
The officers of the Farm Bureau
Federation and delegates to its con
yentions, evidently have the absurd
dea that the more wealth few in
lividuals or corporations accumulate
he better off is the country as a
Whole. The poisonous stuff fed to them
" a corrupt, orporation-controlled
ress is swallowed whole and quite