The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1951-02-22
Labor Chief
(Confinued From Page One)

wee Committee; by DIR. Ralpl
Bunche; by Henry w. Ladder, lonI
the handspring Of the League 70
Industrial Democracy; by Morris /
Cooke, chairman Of the President
Committee on Water Resources
and by DR.. Harrington.
McLaurin and Mitchell recalle,
the part Thomas had in the forTna
tion Of their unions. No other per
son so richly deserves the award
said Mitchell, noting that it wa
Thomas who inspired the formation
Of the Southern Tenant Farmer
Union, which brought hope to thu
sharecroppers, and out Of which
grew the National Farm Laboi
Union.
DR.. Harrington called Thomas &
great prophet and great teacher
where there has not been free
dom, there Norman Thomas has
taken his place." he said. The
message from Alex Rose called
Thomas "incorruptibly discomfort
ed"
In accepting, Thomas said he was
merely the symbol Of the long fight
for labor, minorities, and civil
rights. 1t was the unknown and
unsung heroes who bear the bur
dens and do the fighting" he de-
clared.
The forces at home which speak
of "cold war" for Is TO 20 years,
said Thomas, are exploiting the sit
uation and are fighting communism
the wrong way and for the wrong
reasons, by tying together com
munism and welfare. The present
kind Of emergency, he said, cannot
continue Is to 20 years; the west
ern democracies must recapture the
initiative for peace. He suggested
that the US, Britain and France
send Stain note declaring read
mess to confer, insisting on free
election following a free campaign
in both eastern and Western Ger
many, with demilitarization Of a
united Germany to follow. Discuss
ion Of universal disarmament
should come next, he said. Doubt
ing that Stain would agree to such
proposals, Thomas said "but to pro-
claim them to the world is one way
to show up the insincerity Of the
Communist talk Of peace and free
DOM"
He said he was profoundly dis
quieted" because liberals have lost
their "power and drive in Amer
ica." The 1850 COP successes, he
said, were due less to Mccarthy
ism or Taft's economics "than to
the failure of the liberals in the|
matter of constructive legislation
and in the way they fought, or
didn't fight, the McCarran act" He|
said "the Maginot-line complex ofl
our liberals is largely to blame for
such triumphs of reaction as, forI
example, the success of the ANA
lobby in preventing a vote in thel
House on aid to medical education" u
The program was recorded andI
broadcast Monday night overI
over the Voice of America,
and over CHS.
The Washington Post, comment
ing editorially on the award, said
that consistently over quarter OF
1 century Norman Thomas has been
osing elections and winning public
esteem. 1t would be a mistake
20 call him the champion of lost
,ause. Much of what he stood for
has by degrees been woven into the
pattern of American life Hell
has always fought for human dig-I
lity and equality of opportunity
md freedom of expression for min
,rity points of view-essentiallyI
political ideas in Am
.rica, however radical his economic
doctrines may have seemed" And
he Post quoted recent article by
Thomas which warned lest ''in the
lame of fighting communism or
ny other totaitarianism We lay its
oundation in America"
WDL grew out of the Emergency
for Strikers Relief, or
,anized in the mid-twenties by thej
league for Industrial Democracy.
he committee served the laborl
in the textile strike at
larion, NC in 1929, Danville inl
$50, West Virginia in 1881 and
932, and the miners strikes inI
.entucky and Illinois in 1881 and
932. In 1885 Gov. Paul McNutt in
oked martial law during the gen.
raj strike in Terre Haute, Ind.
,ater that year a labor organizerl
'as flogged to death by the Klan
/ Tampa, Fla. In 1886 the cotton
hoppers of Arkansas struck
gainst the Negro and white menu
ers of the Southern Tenant Farm
rs Union. Il
1t was in 1886 that the Workers
efense League was formed. In ]
948 WDL established the Com !
lission of Inquiry Into Forced
abor, which is now an information
clearing house for forced labor, |
avery and peonage information. |
the WDL is concentrat- |
e on protecting individuals whosel I