The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1947-03-13

has yet come before the official at
tention of this board"
The boards decision was based
on an analysis of the organiza-
tion's charter with it's limitation
of all final authority to three
founders, headed by Allen L.
Rucker, Lexington, Mass. The ap-
plication for Incorporation of the
Lexington group had been made
under provision of the State Gen
eral Corporation Law requiring
approval of any organization de-
string to incorporate which has in
its title terms such as ''union,"
labor" and brotherhood" which
connote a trade union organization.
Incorporated in Delaware
Already Incorporated under the
laws of Delaware, the Tool Own
ers' Union, with Rucker present as
witness, had pressed it's case in
board hearings in November.
10 Rucker, both in his testimony
I'd in full-page newspaper adver-
sments, had outlined his desire
organize thrift-minded citizens,
vi of whom he said had some
share in the "tool of production"
into a national organization that
would advocate policies aimed to
set the nations economy straight.
Members had been asked to
write Congress urging enforce
ment of the Smith -Connally strike
curb law, the right to belong or
not belong to a labor union, equal
responsibility of business and
labor, provisions against work in
terruptions until after all collec-
tive bargaining had failed, and no
strikes unless voted by a majority
of workers concerned.
Centralized Control Hit
The advertisements brought rep
resentatives of labor unions out in
force to the hearings, in which
they contended that the term
union" in Tool Owners Union
was misleading and that the or
ganization was, in fact, anti-union.
The state board took particular
exception to the articles of incor-
poration of the Tool Owners
Union limiting ultimate authority
over all of it's actions and policies,
including those of local units, to
the founders, who, besides Rucker,
were his wife, Elsie M. Rucker,
and his business partner, Fred H.
7Nckels.
While the charter provided for
@0So additional founder-members, it
Was pointed out by the board that
a quorum could be made by three,
so that Rucker presumably could
always exercise control.
appeal to Mass Emotion"
whatever the reasons may be-"
the decision said, "Mr. Rucker
made certain that the destinies of
this corporation and 50,000,00O
people whom he hoped to attract
to the same would be controlled
by himself.
"The incorporators believe that
there is something wrong with our
country, and that they want to do
something about it. But they re-
serve to themselves-and in the
final analysis the power of deter
mining is in one man-the means
by which the dangers they see to
our country are to be vanquished.
"At the same time they appeal
to the mass emotion of the great
middle class in times of stress-to
the typist at her machine and the
foundry owner harassed with labor
trouble-for blind allegiance to a
cause which appears to be the
same to all but actually is diff
ferent.
"We have just finished a great
war started by man who had his
own ideas to what was wrong in
the country in which he was not
Ghprn. This man, too, worked out a
stem which left ultimately to
himself the last decision in all
matters"
The board said it did not want |
this to happen in America even
though Rucker and his associates
might have laudable, unselfish and
charitable devotion to the welfare
of all Americans and democracy.
However, the board declared
that because what took place in
Germany and Japan and what is
occurring today in Russia and Po-
land and other dictator-dominated
countries might take place here,
we must be ever on our guard.
'"This is not only the public pol
icy of the state of New York but
. all the states and the convic
bn of all Americans"
The board said that while other
organizations had the word union
in their titles, such as English
Speaking Union and Union Lea
que, the combination of union"
and "tool' indicated a labor group
and therefore was misleading.