The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1948-01-08
AItgeId. Workingmon's Governor
Honored On Hundredfh Anniversary

Chicago tLPA)-John Peter Alt
geld, Illinois heroic, pro-labor gov
ernor, would have hardly believed
that on the hundredth anniversary
of his birth a Cardinal, Supreme
Court Justice, and an incumbent
Republican Governor of his state
would have gathered together to
pay tribute to him. For when he
died, nearly fifty years ago, he
was despised and hated by all but
the workingmen in whose interests
he sacrificed his political career.
1t was only fitting that William
Green, president of the AFL, and
Philip Murray, president of the
CIO, should have paid tribute to
Altgeld on his hundredth anniver-
sary. For they speak of the work
ers as he did himself.
President Green's message to an
anniversary dinner he said, Gov
ernor Altgeld was always regard
ed as a champion of the oppressed
and common people of our nation.
He spoke and acted as one who
possessed a broad and comprehen-
sive vision of our nations future
He was far in advance of his day."
President Murray wrote "The
problems with which Altgeld strug-
gled - monopoly practices, en-
trenched greed and protection of
the rights of workers-are still fac
ing the nation. His record of fear
lessness and intelligence still shines
as a beacon to guide us in meeting
our problems in the ways of mill
tant democracy"
In addition to Samuel Cardinal
Stritch, Catholic Archbishop of the
Diocese of Chicago, Dwight Green,
Republican Governor of Illinois,
and William o. Douglas, Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court,
whom some people think may be
the Democratic nominee for the
Vice Presidency of the U. S., two
great Illinois poets, Carl Sandburg
and Edgar Lee Masters, addressed
the dinner. 1t was another Illinois
writer, the late Vachel Lindsay,
who wrote Eagle Forgotten" one
of the great memorial poems of
English literature, which has kept
Altgeld's name alive.
But now it is the really little men
who are forgotten-the railroad
barons and the sweat shop employ
ers, the reactionary politicians, and
the anti-labor propagandist = the
men who bounded Altgeld out of
public life because he had written
onto the statute books some of Am
erica's first labor legislation. They
hated Altgeld because he had par
doned framed" labor men, because
he had recognized the justice of
Gene Deb's railway unions stand
against the mighty Pullman Co.,
and refused to call in federal
troops.
In the main address of the eve
ming, Justice Douglas pointed to
Altgeld's prophetic actions. Altgeld
sponsored an anti-child labor law,
and another one which established
an eight-hour day for women. His
bill forbidding the discharge of a
worker for union membership fore
shadowed the Wagner Act. He
pushed for arbitration and media
tion practices to replace the savage
methods of Settling" grievances
which employers resorted to. In his
defense of the Pullman strike he
coined the phrase government by
Injunction" and started a move
ment against judicial repression of
labor that looked as if it had sue
ceeded prior to the passage of the
Taft-Hartley law.
Douglas summed up Altgeld's
philosophy in these words: "Alt-
geld placed human beings higher
than the dollar in the national scale
of values. A nations industrial
plant represents not only the dar-
ing of capital and the imagination
of executives, but the blood and
sweat of men. The men and women
who compose nation are its great
est natural resource-greater than |
its mines or forests or rivers. The l
state must concern itself with their |
economic disaster. For their great 4
er share of their troubles are due /
not to laziness but to economic |
forces beyond their control. The !
powers of government should be
directed to protect them in their
struggle to survive and in their eff
forts to live in dignity"
- Ill