LABOR MARKING TIME
Cohen, Joseph E.
LABOR MARKING TIME A Period of Rest Before New Conquests By JOSEPH E. COHEN AMERICAN LABOR seems as far away as ever from the movement across the ocean. It is aa isolated as it ever was. In...
...Net along thia method lies ths salvation of ths messes...
...14.—Pstrick Finnegsn, 25, wss shocked to desth by the third roll while at work on the B. M. T. elevated line todsy...
...were killed when the scsffolding gsve wsy...
...It lost e golden opportunity to rsise the question of human rights to the position of greatest importance for this nation...
...The leaders of ths American movement may, some of them, imagine thst they can go on as they have in the past, purely opportunistic, playing one party against the other, sometimes with a trifle of success, more often with a lot of failure...
...This is quite natural and may be accepted as unavoidable, were the contrary desirable...
...FAYETTEVILLE, W. Va...
...What cannot.be disputed is that the forces at work are deep and gigantic...
...In all the years of desperate struggle against terrible odds, which the European movement has undergone since the war began, there has been little sympathy and less support from the better-to-do wage workers here...
...In this senss, then, a Labor Day which has to sdmit thst there hss been a period of marking time hss plenty of csuse for celebration...
...But if the trades union movement here does not dare to strike out boldly into fresh chances for wholesome progress, who is to take the lesd...
...What is nesrer true is that American Labor follows too closely the genersl trend of opinion in our country...
...On the continent of Europe civil war and physical turmoil have been the logical offspring of the slaughter and destruction of the war...
...20.—Two trainmen ere dead ss the result of a collision of trains nesr here todsy...
...Therefore it ie net conceivable that there is to bs considerable of this marking of time upon the part of American Labo...
...22.—The engineer of the Erie shuttle trein wee pinned underneeth hie engine snd killed todsy when his locomotiva jumped the track...
...Add to that the inevitable expansion due to the bountiful profite gathered in by our plutocracy, and it is readily conceivable that the resistance ageinst aggression should hsve been stronger on the pert of the membership of the unions...
...plant today...
...Rather would' they be open-handed if they were aware that aid should bs extended...
...The American movement is not in its infancy...
...There should not have been the big cut there was...
...When they burst forth into the open, it is only that they have ripped out at some glaring injustice...
...It is big snd sblebodied...
...It csn take care of itself...
...The curtailing of the physical endurance and power of resistance among the workers, the juggling of the national finances to entrench the holdings of ths large industrislists, as well as the brazen use of repressive measures, has reduced the workers to a much lower economic station, however more ready they are to strain after political power...
...However valuable such geins and experience ahould be, it is e small beginning against storming the citadels of financial wrong...
...Labor will learn to have to function as Labor...
...It failed to give that movement the Labor impress it should have had...
...NEW YORK, Aug...
...And when it has csught its breath, it will be sure to go forward, and with more determination, courage and understanding...
...For Labor has not gone back...
...The Contest In Every Country And they are indeed woefully short-sighted who do not yet realize that the present is chsnging into the future which belongs to Labor...
...Altogether, Labor is on the defeneive...
...However hard the road and difficult the obstscles, Labor is headed away from the old tyrenny and toward the better World...
...When they appear to be at rest, it is only thst they 'are feeling about for a firmer grip...
...The forces for progress are too strong...
...Two members of the engine crew were killed in s collision on the Csnsdisn Pscific Rsilwey todey...
...Of course, too serious attention need not be given to the declaration thst the trades unions are through with "third parties...
...That has often been the paradox of evolution...
...JERSEY CITY, Aug...
...14.—Eleven ere dead as the result of the sinking of a French collier at sea, bound here from Cardiff, Wales...
...They are very nearly blind who do not note that the contest in every lend is between the old order of class rule and the new order of common control...
...Accidenta et coel nines in July resulted in the death of ISO workers, according to the Bureau of...
...Ths momentum to edvance is too greet to be resisted...
...It is not sufficiently concerned with making and leading public opinion...
...But that era is over...
...23.—When his right temple cerne in contect with a live wire in a power house in the Bronx, Michael Burke, 20, en oiler, wss shocked to desth...
...A Period of Marking Time It may seem that ligm are few of any impending change for the better...
...NEW YORK, Aug...
...NEW YORK, Aug...
...21.— Michsel Colline, laborer, wss killed when struck by a locomotiva st the Bidwell crossing...
...CONESUS JUNCTION, N. Y., Aug...
...Least of all could they be accused of deliberately abandoning or neglecting their brothers elsewhere...
...To bo tur* there has been no feeling of aelfishneu within the bearti of our toilers...
...19.—Four carpenters retimbering the air ahaft at the Lochgelly mine of the New River Coal Co...
...But they are never still...
...Events trsvel too quickly...
...As different as conditions here are, Labor cannot endure leadership which is satisfied merely to merk time, accept alight concessions in material advantage end rather eeek to add a little by saving and investing...
...BREST...
...PARIS, Aug...
...When they seem to falter, it is only thet they are measuring their reach...
...Nor can it be suppossd that eyery social upheevsl in the old world Will not find sympethetic vibration here...
...Above the din of battle can be heard the sb/ill cry of the arouaed workers determined to end their squalor, their uncertainty and their doom under capitalism...
...NEW YORK...
...Some assistance was tendered not so long eg), even to the Germsn trsdss unions...
...There is too much at stake...
...15.—The steamer Seint Mere ripped her keel on e rock near Ouessant, sinking in 12 minutes and carrying ten members of the crew to the bottom todsy...
...Reduction of hours does not keep pace with increased productivity, so that the army of unemployed would jump tremendously were it not Tor its re-employment in the fashioning of luxuries to absorb the swelling surplus...
...Labor's participation in tha La Follette movement was one of the most glorious adventures ir its csree»\| It might regret thst it did not exert itself more unitedly and with greater success...
...And there wss no time like the present when, it wss mesnt to come out of its tent snd tske the lead in the battle of Labor the world over...
...18.—While repsiring the topmast of the steamer Hartholomew st Hoboken, Peter Gourgend fell 100 feet end died instantly...
...f NEW YORK...
...19.—Michael O'Brien, 30, was killed by electricity in the boiler room of the Adminietrstipn Building, here todsy...
...Wage scsles generally fojlow after instead of preceding the cost of living...
...Labor's Dividends FREEPORT, L. I., Aug...
...Accidents to workers engsged in coke manufacture in 1924, resulted in 24 deaths snd 1,(45 injuries, according to the United States Buteeu of Mines...
...Even when fully admitting the difference in conditions, American Lsbor yet belongs entirely with European Labor, whether cooperating to make e strike of miners effective or joining forces to msks war impossible...
...It overlooked its chances to bring the Labor question to the forefront of Americsn thought, as it is at the forefront of American life...
...TV SALIDA, Col., Aug...
...20.—John C. Smith, 35, a lineman, was shocked to death by an electric wire at the Jeraey Central Power and Lighting Co...
...What b Wrong With American Labor ? And thst is whst is so very wrong with Americsn Labor todsy...
...For with European Labor it has been and still is very bsd...
...20.—Dynamite exploeion in e tunnel being constructed in the Bronx killed Dominick Fuso, a laborer, yesterday...
...LETHBRIDGE, Alts.,* Aug...
...So that at worst there is lsek of information which keeps Americsn Labor aloof...
...But it could not, if it would, ersse the record of its first effort to create political ¦ opinion in this country...
...Too much of the energy of the movement is, perforce, spent in fighting against sttempted encroachments upon the standards already established...
...LONG ISLAND CITY, Aug...
...Louis P. Johnson, a trainman, wss killed by a Long Island train in Rosedsle, Queens, todsy...
...18.—A boiler explosion killed two workmen here todsy...
...LONG BRANCH, N. J., Aug...
...Immigration Ban An Aid As hard a row as Labor in this country had had to hoe, jt has been favored by the restriction on immigration and the period of boom times from the beginning of the war in 1914 until America's entrance in 1917...
Vol. 2 • September 1925 • No. 36
