THE MOOD OF AMERICA

...In just about every contest be-s tween progressive legislation and reactionary tradition, his vote has been cast for special interests and against the general welfare...

...The> First York Corporation, one of the lower tentacles of a financial octopus of holding companies reaching back to Wall Street, owned 37 1/2% of Bell stock on June 1. By June 27, it had purchased 56,000 additional shares which boosted its holdings to 51% of the stock...

...Republican State Chairman Cale Holder summoned his party wheel-horses to Indianapolis for a conclave...

...In the recent British election campaign, there was almost no Conservative criticism of the National Health Service as administered by the Labor Government and the program of socialized medicine was not even an issue in the last campaign...

...Indeed, while the company appeared at meetings with the union, it was carrying on an aggressive campaign to drive a wedge between the rank and file and the union's leadership...

...Neither is a Socialist and neither is a member of the Labor Party...

...Not only in Indiana, but wherever reactionary men and monied interests seek office and power, Republicans (and in the South, some Democrats) are charting their course along the road of subterfuge...

...It is worth mentioning, in ascribing premeditation to the previous evening, that one of the girls in my Sunday School ate at the home of a relative'on the Bell engineering staff...

...Even this did not satisfy Bell Aircraft, however...

...First York paid $16 for it, but the stock was really worth $37.64 per share...

...Later it was learned that a half dozen or more company agents attended the meeting...

...8, it sent a letter to all employes saying that in order "to protect the jobs of those who want to work, we must reopen the factory without further delay...

...U. S. Sen...

...The rioting charges were based upon incidents which occurred during a union demonstration at the plant six days later...

...However, still more charges remain...

...the vengeful trials continued...

...and the investment would be very profitable indeed...

...It is a story which American liberals will encounter everywhere with increasing frequency as the Old Guard becomes restive under Fair Deal rule...

...Despite tier presence of state mediators, led by Msgr...

...An insight into the motives for the corporation's willingness, if not anxiety, for a strike may be found in the stock deal then pending...

...It is to force them to come out in the open and have done with dodging and evasion...

...The other gentleman is Maitland Mackie, a large-scale dairy farmer from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a member of the somewhat lonely Liberal Party...

...What the Labor Government is opposed to is people without homes...

...John P. Boland, and Federal mediators, no true collective bargaining took place...

...With the collapse of the strike, the National Carbon Company refused to rehire several hundred of the union's most active members, and they remain out of the plant to this day...

...Company press releases attacked the union's officers and leaders as "subversives," "Trotskyites," "anarchists," "terrorists," etc...

...For liberal forces everywhere, the strategy is out in the open...

...Labor as a whole is united for greater production and has played a responsive role in the national economy under the Labor regime...

...But still the ranks held...

...It was Bell Aircraft which refused to agree to further extension or to continue negotiations...

...Witnesses were obtained by the company and briefed by company officials and company lawyers...

...1, 1949...

...Air convoys to carry scabs over the picket lines were started and all activities were designed to persuade, cajole, and intimidate workers to return individually to the plant and leave their - union outside...

...By then his financial position was something more than secure, so he looked about for new worlds to conquer...

...National Carbon's back-to-work campaign with its court injunction, mass arrests, organized back-to-work compaign, and other strike-breaking activities reminiscent of the Mohawk Valley Formula proved to be too much for the striking unionists to withstand...

...27, 1938, on his 1200-acre farm in southern Indiana, he was host to some 17,000 Republicans at a mass meeting generously publicized as a "grass-roots conference...

...Liberals can summon the winds of truth to blow away the smoke screen along the Wabash...

...However, the evidence clearly indicates that corporation officials and policy were to blame...

...In some respects Homer Capehart is a strange combination, a sort of coagulation of small-town business man with the outward aspects of a beefy truck driver...

...Each night Capehart read the same typewritten speech, charging the entire' New Deal program was pure socialism, leading inevitably to Communism...

...The strike of the National Carbon workers collapsed in its 10th week...

...Homer Capehart, Indiana Republican...

...Immediately prior to the Bell strike, we saw the same legal and police offensive against the striking employes of the National Carbon Company of Niagara Falls, N. Y. In that strike of more than 800 members of the United Gas, Coke, and Chemical Workers, CIO, Local 83, more than 70 persons were arraigned and named in various criminal and contempt charges of the company...

...King-Hall and Mackie point out that the agricultural committee is not a Government one—it is composed of local unpaid farmers...

...The conspiracy was alleged to have taken place at a union meeting at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, Sept...

...In the course of that 19-week strike, approximately 90 strikers, strikers' wives, and friends were arrested on a variety of charges ranging from disorderly conduct to rioting and conspiracy...

...For seven nights, each in a different Indiana city, they met in forensic battle...

...This time they decided to be against socialism...

...As a part of the 'new look' in Republican publicity Stephen C. No-land, who before his retirement was for 16 years editor of the Indianapolis News, was sent to England...

...On Aug...

...No small amount of credit for this rift in the fabric of society can be claimed by our good friends, Mr...

...Noland said, "A British dentist cannot pull a wisdom tooth without first securing a Government permit...

...These new threats to peaceful, orderly collective bargaining and to the very existence of labor organizations, were dramatized by the recent strike of the United Automobile Workers, CIO, Local 501, against the Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo...

...Noland said, "A British farmer can be permanently kicked off his farm if he does not farm the land to suit a Government committee...

...Ill This report is not concerned with either recommending or indicting socialism...

...Witnesses were brought to court in company cars by labor relations and plant officials and paid "lost time" by the company for their appearances against the union workers...

...Thousands of Hoosier voters are being exposed to the distorted pictures of socialism presented by the Capehart campaign committee...

...The market price was $14 per share...

...Your job is ready for you at the same wage rates, vacation plan, insurance coverage, and paid holidays that you had before the strike," (but without a union...

...Nevertheless, on July 12, the injunction was granted, limiting pickets to 15 on a gate, 10 feet apart, in continuous motion, not to prevent ingress or egress from the plant...

...Dentists may pull as many teeth as the patient is willing to endure...

...On the 13th, the plant was reopened for office workers and engineering personnel...

...Commander Stephen King-Hall for the last 15 years has been the publisher of the National News-Let-ter in London...

...ALAN B. PEABODY, pastor of the Riverside Salem Evangelical and Reformed Church of Buffalo, is treasurer of the Erie County Civil Liberties Union . . . . FINNEY BRIGGS, long a cartoonist and commentator for metropolitan dailies, lives in Indiana, where he has been active in advertising and radio...

...After 1949 negotiations collapsed on June 12, company press releases attempted to fix blame for the strike on the union...

...Writing from Indianapolis, White commented: "Revamping of the state GOP set-up was Urged by party stalwarts...

...It is then up to GOP orators to carry on...

...While staged in a rural setting, these malcontents were not farmers...

...But the Noland articles were under way, in newspapers and on the air...

...The workers did not respond, and the company stepped up its efforts to drive the strikers back into the plant...

...There you have the condensed, combined answers of two responsible Britishers—neither of them a Socialist...

...The 1,400 members of Local 501, who remained loyal had done so in the face of the combined strength of a wealthy company supported by large investment trusts, a well-organized industry supporting its efforts, the community newspapers, the police, and the Republican-dominated courts of Niagara County...

...But he has not been content to be merely negative...

...Noland said, "The British Labor Government is opposed to the private ownership of homes...

...Here the hungry—politically and otherwise—gathered under some 40 gaily-striped tents set - up in the cornfield to munch on chicken and baked clams...

...Further, it was probably in danger of losing certain contracts if it did not soon get back into production...

...Bell officials likewise refused proposals to sign a new contract which would postpone negotiations on unresolved issues of wages, pensions, etc., for several months...

...The record shows that the UAW-CIO officers and leaders did propose, immediately prior to the strike, to extend the former contract as was and to continue at work while carrying on further negotiations...

...Democrat, supposedly on the subject, "Is the New Deal Party trying to enforce British-type Socialism on the American people...

...Andrew Jacobs...

...Those who were permitted to return to their jobs now work without a union contract and National Carbon refuses to recognize any union...

...The union ratified the arbitration proposal at a membership meeting on Oct...

...The injunction plea was made despite the fact that pickets were operating under strike rules originally proposed by the company and not a single incident of violence had occurred in the strike...

...Three of the defendants were convicted on the rioting charge and two defendants, the regional director and the sub-regional director of the union, were convicted on the conspiracy count...

...No Inner is dispossessed unless he is grossly and scandalously negligent and then his farm is operated for him...

...In the face of this power, through long weeks of hardship, suffering, and abuse, the vast majority of unionists remained united, and finally returned to work with their union intact...

...His Senate record might be tolerated if it could be said only that it has been colorless and undistinguished...

...Working-class housing even before the war was at a low-grade standard, and bomb-destruction dragged it still lower...

...From this time forward, conditions deteriorated swiftly...

...Thus Capehart laid the groundwork for the political career which began six years later, in 1944, when he was elected to the U. S. Senate...

...This week 22 Hoosier radio stations and upwards of 100 Indiana newspapers, many of them weeklies, are to air and print the first of No-land's series...

...In April, more than six months after the strike settlement, 23 unionists were placed on trail on riot and conspiracy charges...

...In this instance, however, the strike settlement did not result in the cessation of hostilities...

...18 by a vote of 618-373, and on the following morning, the strikers began to return to work...

...By this time, the community had been aroused, and the Governor appointed a Board of Inquiry to make recommendations upon which collective bargaining might be resumed...

...Half a hundred unionists may yet be prosecuted on a variety of charges by Bell Aircraft attorneys or the Niagara County district attorney...

...Since the sick-pay is only one-sixth of the average weekly wage, it has not been a factor in the labor situation...

...But since Capehart has chosen to use it as a political smoke screen, let us see how Steve No-land's "objective" reports on Britain stand up...

...Letters were sent, telephone campaigns organized, and foremen and company agents visited workers at their homes...

...For an account of this conference, let me quote Frank A. White who independently syndicates his daily column, "The Hoosier Day," to a dozen Indiana papers...

...This was a public meeting attended by strikers, their friends, members of the community, newspaper reporters, and several members of the Buffalo Police Department...

...Seventeen hundred production and maintenance workers went on strike at the Bell plant in June, 1949...

...This past winter Capehart tangled in a series of debates with Rep...

...Building materials, mostly imported, have had to be allocated according to the most pressing needs...

...Homer Capehart is strong for making the drift to socialism a key issue when he stands for reelection...

...Taft and Mr...

...During the last election he was the Independent candidate for Parliament for Bridgewater, Somerset...

...In the past year in Britain there have been many small strikes, but only once were troops used and that was in the case of the Communist-fomented dock strike...

...II Prior to 1949 contract negotiations, Local 501, UAW-CIO, had a 12-year-long history of peaceful collective bargaining with Bell Aircraft...

...In fact, the entire case presented by the company was admittedly based upon incidents organized, planned, and directed by corporation officials...

...I have submitted several of the Noland charges against British socialism to two noted Britishers for comment...

...After the strike's end upon the return of the men to the plant, Bell Aircraft attorneys prosecuted approximately 40 local and international union leaders in contempt of court proceedings for alleged violations of a court injunction...

...Noland said, "British Socialism is endeavoring to break up the church and the home...

...Noland said, "British labor's right to strike is gone, and the Government uses armed troops to replace strikers...

...The record also discloses that the evidence was, in large part, collected by Bell Aircraft officials and special company investigators...

...Great Smokescreen Along the Wabash By Finney Briggs Indianapolis SAM SPADE, the radio detective, would probably dub this tale "The Capehart Caper," but such a whimsical title wouldn't do justice to the low-level campaign now being waged in behalf of the re-election of Sen...

...He has done an 'objective job' of reporting socialism in England, and No-land is to 'point up' socialism as an issue...

...This is the story of the Hoosier political strategy which depends for its success upon the gullibility of Indiana voters and the cooperation of the Republican state and county machines, plus a perpetual grease-job from the Capehart cash-box...

...Approximately 50 additional defendants were named in various company charges of violating a court injunction...

...This is undoubtedly the first case of public conspiracy on record...

...Each year since 1937, Local 501 had succeeded in negotiating or renewing its contract without loss of a single hour by strike action...

...Noland said, "Doctors are driven almost crazy by people asking for 'Sick Cards' so they can stay home on sick pay for 13 weeks...

...This last winter in Washington, National GOP Chairman Guy Gab-rielson and his Republican cohorts went into a policy huddle...

...They reveal the Capehart-Noland-GOP articles as a calculated smoke screen, designed to hide the sterile public record of an extreme right wing Senator seeking re-election...

...One last effort was needed to convince the public that the union was led by irresponsible men and to frighten the rank and file into deserting the union...

...On the 11th, with the aid of the local press, the company announced that the back-to-work movement was on...

...Here on the Niagara Frontier, the good labor relations which our Chambers of Commerce love to brag about are being breached...

...All circumstances surrounding the situation that morning point to one conclusion—that the company, with the aid of the sheriff of Niagara County, desired an incident...

...Hartley, and their Congressional colleagues they seduced into believing that the humiliation and persecution of trade unionists is the way to achieve stability in industrial relations...

...It is the Republican hope to convince voters that British Socialists and American Democrats are cats of the same breed...

...His heavy body supports a well-cushioned head, with a ruddy face which glows and flames behind a pair of glasses set halfway down his nose as he orates against new-fangled ideas...

...However, the court record discloses that three company attorneys were present in the court house during the trial to aid the district attorney in the preparation and prosecution of the case...

...Several times each evening Jacobs challenged Capehart to name a single piece of New Deal legislation that he would repeal— and the Senator escaped every time with blustering generalities...

...A distorted statement, say King-Hall and Mackie...

...II The first stirrings of political ambition within the Capehart breast were noticeable about 12 years ago...

...In the third week of the Bell strike, company officials filed application for a court injunction to restrain picketing at the plant...

...Later on during the strike, Julius Domonkos, corporation vice president in charge of labor relations, intimated to a group of Buffalo clergymen that this was a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose proposition...

...On the morning of Sept...

...After 18 weeks of strike, the company was finally forced to accept arbitration and both sides agreed to the offer of the Board of Inquiry to act as a Board of Arbitration...

...Convictions were obtained and the 40 unionists were given maximum individual sentences of 30 days in jail and $250 fines...

...This engineer said at the supper table that "they were going to use tear gas the next day...

...With Jacobs unable to pin his opponent down, even Republican newspapers had to admit that Capehart's inauguration of his 1950 campaign was a dud...

...Men and women who believe that the American way of life is the daily practice of democracy have the answer...

...Their reactions, therefore, are not party-line...

...It is interesting to note that the regional director of the union was more than 400 miles away at the time the conspiracy is alleged to have taken place...

...Even this and the large number of arrests did not deter the members of the local union, and the company began a campaign to hire strikebreakers through private employment agencies and dummy advertisements...

...If the company won the strike and broke the union, it could reduce its labor costs...

...In other campaigns they had been against the New Deal, the Welfare State, and the Fair Deal...

...Striking workers have been arrested, tried, and convicted in droves for alleged violations of court injunctions issued to restrain their picketing activities...

...There has been no visible increase in the craziness of doctors, says Mackie and King-Hall...

...If it were defeated, and the company liquidated, First York would realize a profit of over $20 per share...

...Unionists and their friends have been imprisoned and held incommunicado for days before arraignment and release on fantastically high bail...

...Thus was kindled the political bonfire which is to furnish the smoke screen, behind which Homer Capehart and other GOP Hoosier candidates hope to hide their reactionary records...

...29, a tear gas attack was launched on the pickets and their sympathizers gathered across the street...

...It is to compel candidates to face issues and discuss their records...

...It seems that the total market value of all outstanding Bell Stock represented approximately one-third of the value of total corporation assets...

...The company, during this process, was forced to abate its union-busting efforts...

...King-Hall and Mackie call this charge another Noland untruth...

...King-Hall and Mackie say flatly that Noland's charge is a lie...

...On Aug...

...He has been a willing slave of the Taft-Wherry leadership, blindly following the caucus line...

...Such cases are rare...

...The Labor Government, putting first things first, is building about 10 municipal houses for every private home being built...

...So the Indiana GOP stiffened its reactionary backbone and, recalling a popular song, serenaded the not-so-united National Committee with the boastful lyrics, "Anything you can do, we can do better...

...N. Y. WHOLESALE arrests, mass trials, court injunctions, police assaults, and tear gas attacks—these and other activities reminiscent of a not-so-dead past have marked recent labor-management relations on the Niagara Frontier...

...The Government places no restrictions on ordinary dental treatments—such as fillings and root treatment, extractions not requiring denture replacements, and ordinary denture repairs...

...An orgy of arrests of workers and their wives followed the tear gas attack...

...Company guards and sheriff's deputies, mounted and afoot, attacked the pickets with tear gas, clubs, and muscle...

...Ostensibly, this was a "case of the people versus Martin Gerber et al" prosecuted by the county district attorney...

...All of them licked their lips and cheered hopefully as Capehart sounded his battle-cry: "I am sick and tired of the New Deal and intend to do something about it...

...He is essentially the salesman...

...The strike was broken and the union destroyed...

...Utterly without foundation, and fanciful nonsense, are the combined comments of Mackie and King-Hall...

...And all of these activities have been related to company back-to-work campaigns which were designed to break strikes and destroy well-established labor unions...

...They point out that most Labor Party members are Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., (not Church of England) and feel that Jesus' teachings on the brotherhood of man are being put into practice through the program of the Socialist Government...

...In dozens of communities where the Noland articles are being published there is only one newspaper, usually Republican...

...All of these convictions are now being appealed and these appeals, although costly and time consuming, may eventually result in reversals of the original verdicts...

...These disgruntled "outs" were the precinct committeemen and vice-committeemen, the county and district chairmen, the party wheel-horses, and interested business leaders...