Life — October 9, 1919 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OCTOBER 9 wy “While there is Life there's Hope" VOL. 74 No. 1928 Published by LIFE Anprew Mitten, President and Treasurer PUBLISHING COMPANY Jaues S, Mercatre, Secretary West Thirty-first Street, New York English Offices, Roll: HE serious troubles in the printing trade may lead to imperfections in the appearance, and delays in the de- of Lire. power is being done to avert these un- livery, Everything in Lire pleasant possibilities, but Lire feels sure that it can rely upon the indul- gence and sympathy of its readers and advertisers. Their interests are ide tical with our own, and they may be sure that Lire will make good any deficiencies in the present or the near future. goes to press AS Lire (somewhat ly) the Steel strike seems not to be prospering. On September hh John Fitz- patrick, strike divulged to the Committee on and Labor his opinion that the Na- tional Committee in the strike would agree to and end the strike if everything in dispute could be submitted to a Board to be named by President Wilson, When this disclosure was made by a news- paperman to Judge Gary as he sat at the head of the table at a public din- ner in New premature- leader, Senate Education charge of arbitrate York he gave it as his temperately expressed, 1 Corporation, in view of its obligations to 150,000 stockholders (including 60,000 or 70,000 employees), and of 250,000 employees, most of them not members of labor unions, and to the general public concerning the issues involved in the strike, “cannot negotiate or confer with Mr. Fitz- patrick and his associates as union opinion, House, Breams Bldgs. labor leaders concerning our em- ployees, whom these gentlemen have volunteered to represent.” For him- self, he said that questions of moral principle cannot be arbitrated or com- promised, and that, in his opinion, such questions were included “in the pres- ent unfortunate struggle.” What that amounts to is that Judge Gary will not arbitrate an invasion. The strike is an invasion of the Steel Corporation by the American Federa- tion of Labor, which intends to con- Judge “questions of moral principle quer and annex it if it can. Gary’s involved” would seem to be very like the moral questions that attended the incursion of the Germans into Belgium in 1914. The A. F. of L. he reaching out for world-powe! the Steel Corporation is in We must hack our way through, say Fitzpatrick and Foster, and after a year or more of preparation they start about it. But the hacking process goes only moderately well. “ We w trate,” they say. But Judge Gary de- clines on the moral grounds that the property of the Corporation and the people who work for it are entitled to pre seems to and its way. will not arbitrate what it is his business and his duty to defend, BS YS 6 Rat seems right. In most strikes refusal to arbitrate before a fair tribunal seems culpable. But this Steel strike is out of common. As said, it ection, He is an invasion. It is not a strike for the benefit of the Steel Corporation's employees, but for the aggrandizement of an outside concern in which only a and apparently a minority, of the Steel emp! minority, small yees are interested. And of the men who are running it, its active leader and director, W. Z. Foster, is a revolutionist of record, an I. W. W. leader who has preached sabotage, a syndicalist, openly opposed to the whole economic system that now obtains in this country. “ Syndicalism,” In his book, he goes in for “or- ganization of the working people into great revolutionary labor-unions” to “blow up and cast aside the political state as at present constituted, do it “by direct action—the strike.” and to He is the secretary-treasurer of the committee to organize the steel What the A. F. of L. Gompers as its workers. Samuel with president thinks of him and his latent aims is matter of conjecture, but to the ob- server, looking on at troubles, the ap- pearance of such a man in such a posi- tion is as though a stick of dynamite turned up in charge of a keg ¢ powder. gun- It is about this strike as the World says: The first thing to be es- tablished is whether it is a strike of dissatisfied employees or the first step in an economic revolution = OSTER stands, plain as print, for revolution, Judge Gary, seen beside him, discloses ‘of paternal benevolence, and so Mr. Gom- An economic revolution y be . but if the aspects does pers, due, and may be com leader of it is to be a pupil of Lenine we know what to expect. And Foster in his booi: preaches the doctrines of fae same that have operated ith effects that we know judge whether they here. Lenine, in Russia enough about ¢ can profitably be introduced “The ished,” wages system must be abol- Foster; “the present in control of the must be stripped of their booty; the thieves at industries workers in every industry shall man- age the affairs of their particular ir comicbooks.com M