Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1949-07-01
Women's News
And Views
BY Odessa Overy
Secretary WOmen's Bureau
Region 2-B

ueSTeeS we KNOW what Ine WOIu
means. 1t means people of edu-
cation who try to govern their
lives by reason, and who usually
live by brainwork. 1t embraces
members of the liberal profes-
sionS, administrators and Spe-
cialists. These people are indis
pensable to society. The body
of human knowledge is largely
the creation of such people, and
they are the people that can put
it to use.
The cat and the mouse atti-
tude toward those who live by
brainWork is something terrific.
1t is the core of our tradition
that mems minds must be free,
and we have taken steps to pro-
tect men in their right to think
and speak freely. To protect
them even when they think
wrongly and speak with error.
We do this because proportion
of error is an unavoidable prod
uct of the free mind, and is also
self-correcting in free environ
ment. Yet at times when pas
Sions run high, toleration weak
ems and with it the protection to
intellectual freedom.
| don't know if any of you
ever read the editorial page of
The Times and Blade. Well, they
have some very good reading
material, usually running down
the laboring class of people, or
someone that represents the la
boring class of people. l think
that it is done to sour the minds
of the people toward these in
teilectualS that are doing so
much for the workers. So, may
be in a future date they will
have enough peoples minds
soured so that there will be a
rebellion, and maybe perhaps
they think that they can over
throw the unions by this method.
But l think that they are
fighting the wrong people when
they try to overthrow the unions
for it was these same people that
went through too much during
the last depression and they
know what the union has done
for them. Furthermore, it is only
the more educated people that
reads all of the paper, or else the
people that wish to educate
themselves by reading the paper
thoroughly, which is one of the
best ways to educate yourselves,
If you are broadminded enough
to consider both sides of the
problem.
Last week the TIMES took off
on our good leader Walter P
Reuther, and of course the
Democrats. They stated that
Reuther didn't know what he
was fixing about when he said
that the Ford proposal was the
same kind of patent medicine
that steered our economy into
catastrophe depression of 1929.
Thus revealing his ignorance Of
the cause of the boom and de-
preston. They state that the
causes was deeply rooted in a
Democratic administrations poll
cies of financing World War L
They further state that these
policies are the policies that Was
practiced during Roosevelt's ad-
miniStration, on an indefinite
greater scale, in the hopes of
buying recovery. They side with
Ford, saying that he is right and
that Reuther is wrong. This edi-
torial states that Reuther's the
ory of increasing the workers
purchasing power, is revealing
his ignorance of basic economy.
OF course in the eyes of big busi-
ness, he is wrong, and of course
the paper speaks for big busi-
ness, that is what keeps them in
business, for it is the financing
that they receive from these big
concerns that keeps them in the
top brackets also.
Why can't these big typhons
afford to increase labor costs?
They are making more now than
they ever have before, the same
as the workers have. But the
workers have been stymied with
the setting of new standards and
the changing of the methods so
as they will not be able to go as
far as they have been going, yet
they are soaring still higher and
higher. 1t is not the little bust
nesses that are giving the
trouble, they are very co-opera-
tive. The most of the little shops
are paying more than the bigger
ones, and the bigger share of
them have the pension plan and
welfare plans for some time, and
they did this on their own ac-
cord.
| repudiate the statement that
was made in this editorial, and
that was that since there was an
unforeseen large layoff the UAW-
CIO changed their plan slightly
by asking for a small increase
and to put the pension plan into
effect. This is very wrong, for
the UAW-CIO were planning,
even before the third wage in
crease was completed that was
what they were going to ask for
in the fourth round'of increases
and guess that the biggest
share of tha rapk and file mann