LABOR EDUCATORS TO MEET
LEVER, E.J.
LABOR EDUCATORS TO MEET By E. J. LEVER Secretary, Philadelphia Labor College THE Fourth National Convention of tha Workers' Education Bureau of America will be held at the Benjamin Franklin...
...As for scabs, the Socialist movement can have no toleration for those who betray the organized workers in their struggles, although it is true that all workers — union, non-union, scabs, Republicans, Democrats and Socialists—will benefit by Socialist victories and final emancipation^—Editor...
...ARCHIBALD CRAIG...
...In other cases, reports showed that alleged company doctors were no doctors at all, but laymen...
...Let workers' educstion be factual education...
...The capacity to face given facts and solve the problems of Labor with them at a basis is more important than loud platitudes that no one pays any attention to and which onlv detract i the minds of the workers from the^r , serious problems...
...The Bronx...
...Chairman Educational Committee,/ Workmen's Circle Branch 164...
...Terre Haute, Indiana...
...I enclose a check for renewal...
...Please do me the kindness to remember me with loving greetings to Comrade Nearing and to extend the same to all the comrades of your Circle...
...I am gratified to learn that you are to have Comrade Scott Nearing with you for a series of lectures under the auspices of your branch...
...The bill gives legislative sanction to the regulations the union has laid down in sll new tunnel work recently, John Mcl'artlan, secretary of the Compressed Air Workers, told the Federated Press...
...Labor unions are means of getting along with capitalism, and in effect they profit, not at the expense of , capitalists, but st the expense of the , poor...
...I feel especially complimented to have so fine a letter from you, as representative of the Workmen's Circle, in which I have found loyal and unfailing friends and comrades in every part of the country...
...Its free forum and its school outgrew the old church building a few years ago...
...Clarence Crane, cfeief lobbyist for tbe contractors, and his associ ates, ran into a knockout when union representatives told the Senate Assembly Committee on Labor and Industries, before the measure was recommended, that the Bootn k Flynn doctors and bosses were faking reports...
...Henry Sloane Coffin will deliver the principal address...
...Editor, The New Leader: Tho Now Party In the News of the Week one of your fraternity says: "Ours is frankly a Labor party and they (the new party) are just as frank in not wanting a distinctly Labor party...
...Now, thanks to the enterprise of Edmund B. Chaffoe and Will Durant, the directors of the temple and school, and to the friendship of sympathetic businessmen, a new and more adequate building is in the process of completion...
...Both want, and the Socialist Parly has been trying for years, to have Labor unions as such officially endorse the political party...
...The logical position for a political movement to free the working class, in my mind, would be to unite all who are the victims of capitalism, and all who love their neignoors enough to want something better than capitalism, and ask them no questions about their standing in the capitalist system, whether they are entrenched in symbiotlc^operation with the capitalists or whether they are competing with their fellow workers...
...What he really means is that the realization of Socialist aims would make Labor unions unnecessary as they would get all they strive for and more...
...Compare the methods of organization of the two parties...
...My Dear Comrade Citron: Having just returned from Chicago after addressing the open Forum at Milwaukee I find your very kind and cheering message of the 20th Inst...
...Delegates from some 100 international and national unions, many State Federations of Labor, Central Labor bodies, District Councils, local unions, Labor Colleges and Workers' Study Classes will be in attendance Great impetus has been lent to the movement through the action of the El Paso convention of the American Federation of Labor in again endorsing workers' education and its recommendation to the International Unions to set aside one-half cent per capita for the Workers' Education Bureau...
...American Labor has reached the point where it is essential that workers' education be developed on a large scale to train the rank and file irt social thinking and to make them more effective in their struggle for industrial and political freedom...
...I may be wrong, for I have not read the literature of the new perty| and neither Socialist nor Capitalist literature gives a very clear view of it, but as I see it the new party, which tries to accept the Labor movement as it is, has a better right to be called a Labor party than the Socialist Party, which tries to cooperate with the Labor movement as it ought to be...
...Enclosure...
...Hoars decrease with air pressure until 48 pounds is reached, when men will be allowed to work only one hour a day...
...The six-hour day, broken into two shifts, begins at 18 pounds pressure above normal, under the new bill, instead of at 21 pounds as in the former regulations...
...Under the terms agreed on, the corporation will enjoy a lease of the property for twenty-one years, after which it will revert to the owners of the old Labor Temple...
...The organisation of Labor Colleges, such as the one in Philadelphia, has resulted in many unions partaking in the work who never went into it seriously before, and the resulting good is ap parent on every hand...
...The only difference in their attitude, so far as I can see, is that while the Socialist Party lias definite principles which they insist the Labor unions ought to adopt, the new party is trying to work out a set of principles v^hich the Labor unions can accept, and which will harmonize with their present purposes...
...Had the new schedule of hours been i^ effect when the contract was drawn for the New York to Jersey City job, with Booth & Flynn, it is estimated that two-thirds of the cases of "beds" would have been avoided and many men dragging along with atrophied thigh muscles would be walking erect...
...Sand Flogs" Win Shorter Hours The Compressed Air Workers' Union, in which the 3,000 "sand hogs" of tWW York are organized, has won a signal legislative victory in the passage and signing of the Nlcol-Phelp bill at Albany, radically limiting the hours under which men may be worked at the higherair pressures in the caissons and tunnels beneath our skyscrapers and rivers arid harbors...
...The political psrty looks to | the future, and it must have the poor as well as the unions if it is to win...
...That is the ideal to bear in mind in developing it...
...For fifteen years the Labor Temple, without favor or prejudice, ha* been a citadel of free speech, lending its rostrum to speakers of all shades of opinion, radical, liberal, anarchist, and conservative...
...Not being a Labor man myself, and expecting Socialism to destroy Labor unions along with the rest of the capitalist system, I would like very much to see another party recognized as the representative of organized Labor, and then the Socialist Party would have to take up the interests of the poor, the scabs, all the unfortunates who need Socialism the more because they have no other protection...
...Please, dear Citron, accept for yourself, for your branch and your educational committee, my warmest thanks for this fine testimonial of your confidence and esteem...
...F. CITRON...
...I am glad to be able to say that my health is now much improved and that I am hoping to grow stronger and fitter for my work as I enter upon the splendid program of our season's activities in behalf of the new and greater Socialist Party...
...Let workers* education be free education...
...With those ideas in mind as a working base the Workers' Education Movement cannot help but succeed...
...It must, therefore, keep Labor disputes out and call itself tho party of the working people, not of Labor...
...A New Labor Temple Being Built A monument to free speech—a handsome six-story, modern Labor Temple—is rising these days on the site of the old Labor Temple, 14th street and Second avenue...
...The cornerstone of the new Labor Temple will be laid Sunday with appropriate exercises...
...This evidence seriously discredited the contractors at the hearings...
...If they profess "sympathy with the aims of Labor" they do no more than Republicans and Democrats have done in many elections...
...I am always, dear Comrade, Yours for the Cause, EUGENE V. DEBS...
...The new building, in addition to a large auditorium, classrooms, clinics and other equipment of the Temple and School, will have a number of apartments and business offices...
...The Labor movement in the past years merely "talked" the necessity for education, now the talk is being converted into action and before long new leadership with a broader vision is bound to develop that will guide the rank and file and make real progress for the Labor movement...
...That is the idea behind workers' education...
...The new building Is being erected by the Labor Temple Building Corporation...
...They do not want a party committed to Labor at all but one committed to "all the people...
...The four-hour day starts at 26 pounds instead of 30, which means that a large proportion of tbe men will be on a four-hour basis as much of the work is done between It and 30 pounds...
...All readers of The New Leader are invited to attend the Philadelphia convention and get acquainted with the progress thus far made and the plans that this convention will make for the future welfare and development of workers' education in the United States...
...Many trade unions have gone into workers' education in ^earnest and some locsl unions are spending hundreds of dollars per year to carry on their classes...
...e—i A Letter from Debt Editor, The New Leader, The following letter, received by me from Eugene V. Debs, will be of interest to your readers...
...This is something that needs explanation...
...Many iter dangerously hurt by compressed air illness were labeled rheumatic cases, and in fifty four cases no report at all was made, so that casualties appeared low on company sheets, and, incidentally, the men were defrauded of compensation when they sought it...
...The union Is stronger now than it was then and is in a position to enforce its health measures...
...The iiew party will not compete with the Socialist Party...
...Both profess sympathy with the aims of Labor, meaning the Labor unions, as distinguished from the working class as a wholq...
...It is apparent on every hand that what the Labor movement needs most at this stsge of the game is more speakers, more organisers, mare effective committee workers, more effective and intelligent business agents and other officers and a more intelligent rank and file...
...We also fear that our correspondent is unfortunate in the statement that Socialism would "destroy Labor unions...
...LABOR EDUCATORS TO MEET By E. J. LEVER Secretary, Philadelphia Labor College THE Fourth National Convention of tha Workers' Education Bureau of America will be held at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel, Phils delphia, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 17, 18 and 19, From its meager beginnings when first organised in Brook wood in the Spring of 1821, the Workers' Education Movement has grown to rather large proportions Many Labor colleges and workers' study classes hav been or ganized and the list of full-time directors of the work and teachers in the service of workers' education is growing into a formidable army of education...
...1 am sure-you'll find these lectures both entertaining and instructive, and I hope that on each ! occasion you will have a full house I to hear thia great Working Class Teacher...
...Jersey City, N. J. (As a matter of fact, we were too generous in saying that the organizers of the new movement do not want "a distinct Labor party...
...Representatives of the contractors' association fought the bill to the last ditch, but legislators were aware of the union's declaration that not a "sand hog" would go into the "air" in the construction of the much advertised Brooklyn to Staten Island tunnel unless hours were so shortened that the men would be protected in some degree against the terrible "bends" or compressedair illness that laid nearly 900 men out in the New York to Jersey City tunnel now nearing completion...
...March 24, 1925...
Vol. 2 • April 1925 • No. 14
