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Show ZtSZiZ? ( ) t V 9 r ' r i Review 1 j - I 5- r ofi Cuarreirit,. Evento ' EDUCATE ORGANIZE COOPERATE VOL VIII; NO. 2. The Christian Church Must Champion Human Rights ager.) The Department of Social Education and Action of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America has issued a digest of the pronouncements of the 1937 General Assembly, held at Columbus, Ohio, May 27 to June 2, dealing with labor, industry, and agriculture. The statement pointed out that there are elements in the present social order that are not compatible with the Christian ideal of the Kingdom of God, and called upon the consciences of men to correct these abuses. The statement reaffirms the position of the Prebysterian Church in favor of collective bar gaining and social security, and the proposed child labor amendment. The full statement is as follows: The Industrial Situation 1. The social and economic problems confronting our nation and the world make it necessary that the church its insistence upon the courageous application of OUTSIDE LOOKING IN WASHINGTON Washington is jittery these days. What with heat and humidity to fret tempers and fray nerves; with lan g bor unrest and strikes thumbing noses at reand an unstable, shifting balance of power turning prosperty, on Capitol Hill, the life of a member of congress is no bed of roses. The old grey wolves are sulking. In every test vote they have taken a drubbing, and they know they have lost the lead ership of the pack. The old smoothies are befuddled, political eye wash no longer soothes irate citizens, and gentle words turn away, no wrath. The young insurgents; not" quite that with all his record for backsure of themselves, are gingerly ing and filling, side stepping and testing their strength and ability ducking, President Roosevelt consit-dow- time-honore- d Current Events Among the current events dur ing the past week might be mentioned the debates on the Presidents court reform proposal in the United States senate. . . . And by the way, these debates bring into those senators the open some-o- f who have been garbed in sheep clothing in order to be elected on the New Deal platform. Our Utah's own senior senaator, William II. King, is a hopeless reactionary. , . . His pledges to support the President made during his campaign for reelection in 1934 As have not been redeemed. soon as he gained his reelection he returned to Washington and joined the forces of reaction and became a leader and spokesman for the vested interests who are opposing the New Deal program. . . . King came before the home-folk- s during the campaign praising the President and the New Deal program and promised time and time again in his campaign speeches to support the President. . . . Upon his return to Washington he discarded his mask of sheep and became a At home here in Utah wolf. In it was, We, the people. Washington it is, We, the power companies of the United States. If there ever was a spokesman for the vested interests in the nations capital Senator King is it. . If there ever was an enemy of the people and peoples interests Senator King is it. Senator King is through as far as the people of Utah are conHe never again will be cerned. (Continued on Page 7) ... , ... Political Outlook Utah and U. S. tinually puts his finger on the most dangerous sore spot on the Compiled From Reports body politic. On every possible oc of Observers of d casion he repeats that our population is and returning prosperRotten Tax System. ity to the contrary notwithstandYessirree! we have a rotten tax ing. He seems to realize, and is . . .nuisance taxes, crooked system. not backward in telling congress, a bunglesome and costly and taxes, (Continued on Page 2) of collecting taxes. . . . system pyramiding tax system. . . .And the poor will pay and pay. Now, on top of all this Utah has THE MAN AND THE MACHINE adopted a system of Chinese tokens . . . when a kiddie wants a nickel ice cream cone, it must be accomSTELZLE By DR. CHARLES panied with a tax token. . . .Your Executive Director, Good Neighbor League observer has heard some call these tokens Blood money. . . .and percalled Blood it is haps American industry is supreme throughout the world mainly pioney. . . .Itrightly was the administra because of our system of mass production. During a recent five tion tax commission who put in this big nuisance. year period 2,000,000 wage earners were eliminated from the vogue There apparently is a difference production and transportation industries, and yet at the end of of opinion of in the this period these industries produced more in volume and value the law passed byinterpretation the legislature than at the beginning. regarding the tokens. . . . Some This process will undoubtedly continue. Nothing can stop legislators say that it wasnt the it. Eventually the masses of the people will be the greatest intent ofonthe legislature to wish tokens of small beneficiaries of increased output. Our real problem will be items. . . . purchasers Others claim these one of distribution. Unquestionably the workers are already nuisance tokens will make every, . . The big benefiting through the enrichment of life which comes through body tax conscious. who evades taxes holder, the wider use of commodities which were formerly the exclu- property sales tax is a blessing. . . . the says sive possession of the rich or well-to-dNo doubt it is a blessing for him Meanwhile, there are certain human elements to which we . . But it is not pleasant to the should give more careful consideration. For example, mass poor who pay the tax evaders to stick together. This is no place for a weak heart or a bad disposition. Old Formulas Are Passe Also, Washington is no place for ossified minds.- It takes an agile brain to hold onto approximate sanity, for so many things do not work out according to the old formulas. It is moie puzzling to find one-thir- ill-fe- d, ill-cla- d, - , o. production, which involves highly specialized operations, has largely destroyed the pride of craft which was once common in industrial life. The shop has become a factory. Something else should be substituted which will give the worker greater interest in his job. The modern factory is operated much like a slaughter house in which the parts of a pig pass through various channels, every part being handled by an expert, whose task consists mainly of an automatic operation in which he may become a specialist in an unbelievably brief period. This is all he knows about the industry. Needless to say, it invariably results in restriction, restraint and repression. The bosses at the other end of the industry are chiefly concerned about production, percentages and profits. Between them there is a chasm that very few ever cross. The workers are regarded as so much equipment. They constitute the major part of the overhead. They are given d numbers in lieu of names which had become sacred to them. Personality counts for little. They have become brass-checke- (Continued on Page 5) MT AL By M. I. T. ... By KATE KICHARDS OHARE U News and Comment ... re-decl- far-flun- Price: 5 Cents Per Copy SALT LAKE CITY. UTAH. JULY 16. 1937. taxes. Opposes Sales Tax Your observer has opposed sales taxes and pyramided taxes. . . .and he will continue to oppose them . . Utahs tax system is not based on the premise of ability to pay . . . When additional funds are needed for the mounting states exsenses, the powers that be talk the legislature into passing an act which pyramids added burdens on the poor who have no ability to pay. . . . We hope that a Moses will appear in the near future who will lead the Utah poor into a scientific tax system. The problem of public improvements is important. . . . But the problem of taxation is more important. . . . For what brooks it to develop the states resources to a high state of production and usefulness only to become the prey of tax-burden- ed (Continued on page 6) TOR KING, ET AL-NE- MIES OF THE PEOPLE The court reform measure isunder discussion in the United States senate. And to be sure, Senator William H. King of Utah, together with some other senators, speak the language of the Liberty leaguers, the language of Tom Girdler of the Republic Steel Corporation, the language of all economic royalists in opposition to the President plan of court reform. The opponents of the plan do not speak the language of the people back home. Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas in a recent address to the liberal lawyers of America describes the law and Constitution twisters like Senators King and Burke. In speaking of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the Constitution Mr. Maverick said: But its just plain nonsense to say that the men who insisted on the amendments to the Constitution, including the Fifth protection amendment, thought they were providing civil liberties from unjustified hanging, for instance for these artificial entities. And the same is true of the Fourteenth amendment. It, too, talks of the life, liberty, and property of persons. It refers in its first section to persons bom or naturalized in the United Sttaes, and it goes on to provide that certain persons cant be elected senators and congressmen. Even John W. Davis and Senators King and Burke dont claim that corporations can be elected senators, although sometimes it looks as if they had been. Well, who invented the word persons, so that Tom Girdler and his kind can today use corporations to defy the will of millions of people ? . . . It is time to change this sophistry, this beating about the mysterious legal bushes. We must admit its dur own Roberts and Pierce Butler that have invented that crazy racket. And its the same kind of lawyers, sitting in the senate judiciary committee that want to perpetrate that dangerous nonsense. Who was the successful plaintiff in the AAA case or the Railway Pension civil-liberti- es case ? A corporation. Whose liberties (that Senators King and Burke, make so much of in their report denouncing the President) does the court spend most of its time protecting I , dYou know the . answer The liberties .ot. corporations!. Our law'repdrts say the 10 senators in their assault on the President, are filled with decisions reassuring the citizens of his constitutional rights, restraining states, restraining the congress, restraining the Executive, restraining majorities, and preserving the (Continued on page 8) . . - Labor on Its Forward March; C. I. O. Is Active Irresponsibility, Violence and Democracy "Public opinion is turning against the C. I. O., says the specialists in turning opinion and calling it public, because of tendencies. its irresponsibility, violence and This has become the keynote of a strikebreaking campaign directed against the steel workers by a large part of the press of the country. The technique of this campaign consists in repeating and restating this assertion in hundreds of different ways, in editorials, cartoons, news stories, columns, etc., until the can treat as accepted fact an assertion for which no factual backing is forthcoming. What are the facts? All the older unions that make up the Irresponsibility? I. C. of backbone the O., the United Mine Workers, the clothing unions and the rest, have a 100 per cent record for regular, responsible and peaceful collective bargaining, and for faithful observance of contracts. The newer unions of the C. I. O. such as the Steel Workers Organizing committee, in its contracts with 60 companies employing 370,000 workers, or the Textile Workers Organizing Committee, with its 360 contracts covering 130,000 workers have a similar 00 per cent record. C. I. O. organizing has been carried to a successful conclusion in the great majority of cases which near valuable anti-democra- self-appoint- ed public-opinionis- tic ts 1 1 without strikes of any kind. Where strikes have been called, it is only becausec ompanies have refused to grant their employes their legal collective bargaining rights. Violence? The record in the steel strike is 13 strikers present and sympathizers shot in the back or clubbed to death and scores more seriously injured; and not a single serious injury to scabs, poWho lice or company gunmen. pray is responsible for this violence the unarmed strikers who are its victims or the highly armed hirelings who do the shooting and clubbing ? In other big C. I. O. strikes there has been little or no violence, for several reasons. In the General Motors strike, few attacks were launched against the strikers because they were sitting down machinery might be injured. In the big Goodno year strike at Akron, there was efviolence because there was an fective picket line and no vigilante attacks upon it were tolerated by the community. Democracy? The C. I. O. has brought democratic rights to hundreds of thousands, now running into millions, of previously unorganized workers. It has broken down the industrial despotism that denied them the right of association and that deprived them of a collective voice in determining It is their working conditions. making it nossible for labor to have an influence in the countrys affairs commensurate with its numbers and importance This, we submit, is not dictatorship but extension of democracy. (Continued on page 2) r |