Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1950-03-24
This You Ought To Know
BY Pete Zvara

EFANKLY, WE WOULD not be concerned
too much with even these unprecedented
profits for Big Business if it were not for the
fact that the trend among the working people,
and the small farmefs-not to mention the
Southern sharecroppers who have never known
anything but abysmal poverty - is developing
in directly opposite direction.
The common people - those who have to
work for a living whether in shops, mills
mines or on the farms are not enjoying the
fabulously lush returns so familiar to Big
Business. On the contrary, there is fierce
resistance on the part of employers to raising
wages everywhere and strong movement is
being developed slowly to cut wages. And
where there are no unions to oppose such wage
cuts they have already been instituted.
Everywhere management is seeking feversh-
ly to install new production methods which
is generally new name for simple "speed-up
Under these circumstances it is only natur-
al that there are As million workers out of
work today in our country. And the indications
are that this figure will rise, AS matter of
fact there are socalled reputable economists
who hail this development and openly declare
that we should look upon S million jobless
workers in this nation as healthy and nor
mall condition.
THE FURTHER ACCUMULATION of this
Il unhealthy development - increased un-
employment - is absolutely inevitable under
Taft's leadership. His reelection to the us.
Senate would be tetamount to 'go ahead"
signal for Big Business to really push their
disasterous policies in all phases of our politi-
cal and economic and social life.
The reelection of Taft to the Senate would
undoubtedly give impetus to the greatest con-
centration of economic power to put him in the
White House in 1852 that this nation has eyed
seen And that would really grease the skids
under our people . :. and that means our coun-
try as a whole. The door would be wide open
to plunge this nation - and with 1t the rest of
the world - into an economic upheaval that
would dwarf the last great depression into in
significance.
This doesn't necessarily mean that Big Busi-
ness is deliberately and consciously driving
the country toward economic collapse No more
than they did in 1929 They didn't want a
depression then either. AS matter of fact
when the depression did set in when the
moguls of Wall Street saw how their financial
empires were crumbling all around them,
they were the first ones to rush to Washington
and demand "extraordinary"-a that means
dictatorial powers for the resident of the
United States in frantic effort to save their
hides
AT the same time they, Big Business was
bitterly opposed to federal relief . . to public
works and unemployment insurance All these
blind fanatics as "Communistic" ventures. They
wanted us to sell apples and starve. They said,
when in 1888 we demanded lis billion dollars
for public works, that that would wreck the
country that public debt of $40 or $50
billion would mean the end of our American
way of life All this is laughable now, but in
those years it very frequently meant job or
starvteion for millions of American citizens.
WELL, AS FAR AS I'm concerned, that is
w the kind of life that Mr. Taft wants to
lead our country to. l don't believe the COM
mon people of America want to return to those
CHASTITY days to the soup kitchens to
believe that unionized workers, no matter what
to the days when brutal police attacks, national
their union affiliation may be, want to return
hunger marches and relief riots. Nor do
guard charges, court injunctions and open
thuggery ruled labor-management relations in
stead of the conference table
The first and absolutely "must' step in pre-
venting the return of these horrible conditions
Is the defeat of Taft in the coming elections.
l. h. Sf~n~ ~1O .,I.sIo