Show 0 national topics interpreted by william bruckart national press building washington Washl nelon D C washington the steel industry of the united states has cast for itself a role in the labor and forthcoming cam dolif politics acs ics laign whether it intended to do so or of not the same is true of john L lewis and his segment of organized labor and it is pretty generally suspected that mr lewis intended to get labor questions well mixed up in politics it is all more important because of president Roosevel ts attack on economic royalists in his philadelphia acceptance speech whatever rights the steel industry has or whatever rights mr lewis and his followers have the fact remains that they are all knee deep in politics and there is every reason to believe that each side will suffer in public esteem as a result it means simply this each side is mixing up problems that are basically economic in character with sordid even unclean political motives this outburst is prompted by two things the gigantic steel industry has taken the position that it will defend itself against encroachment of professional labor leaders like mr lewis and president william green of the american federation of labor and their satellites from any source the steel industry thereby has thrown down the challenge and now ahat hat such a die is cast the steel industry will be compelled to do a number of indefensible things if it adheres to its program the same condition is to be observed in the organized labor situation whether mr lewis is willing to admit it or not his declaration that he will foster even enforce his scheme for organizing the steel workers is likely to lead to overzealous acts by his followers and overzealous and foolish acts all too frequently lead to bloodshed for a number of years steel companies have refused steadfastly to recognize bucks ion labor as rep imons resented by the professional leaders in the american federation of labor they have attempted to defeat the inroads of that organization by forming what is known as company unions groups of employees e es on the pay roll of each corporation they have accorded to these groups the right of collective bargaining and have insisted that they would woul d deal only with the representatives of the company unions for the reason that they believe they then ary are dealing with the employees concerned with questions of pay and working conditions in that particular plant if the national unions were recognized officials of a given company always have had to negotiate with the expert union ne who are paid by the na dional organization the results have not always been happy this combination of circumstances together with a disposition on the part of the steel companies I 1 am afraid to be rather selfish in their attitude toward labor has developed a continuing controversy that has raged over the last score of years it happened that the rather insolent announcement of the steel companies their challenge came almost simultaneously with the delivery of president Roosevel ts speech accepting the democratic nomination for reelection election re it was in this speech it will be remembered where mr roosevelt denounced economic royalists in which he resorted to expressions bound to create class hatred and in which he used language th that a t i is s certainly going to help discredit corporations which are large enough to attract national attention of course I 1 know that mr roosevelt did not have the steel in industry particularly in mind in his assault on massed capital but the eff effect act is the same as though he had been shooting directly at th the steel industry because of the co coincidence inci mentioned above the tragedy of the thing is that the professional labor leaders are I 1 going to use the steel indu I 1 challenge politically from all of the inside discussions that I 1 have heard it appears that the issue between the real the steel industry issue and w its workers is no longer simply whether the steel industry shall be unionized it is a question of how it snail be unionized in addition to this mr lewis has been chisel ing away for several years in promoting his labor union idea of or organizing gan izing all workers in one unit instead of the craft union idea that is is basic in the american federation of labor that is to say mr lewis proposes to have a steel union or a shipbuilding union or a textile union instead of organizing the workers in accordance with the particular jobs they do whether they be engineers painters carpenters or any orie one of I 1 the various other crafts since the steel industry has its company unions there is a conviction in many quarters qua arters that mr lewis might well pause to consider whether this is the time to carry forward his program of bringing steel workers under national labor union control there are those who believe that the company unions eventually will become units in the larger labor structure ef cf the country and if that be true it is made to appear that mr lewis has hurt labors cause on the other hand the steel industry already is under attack by the government mr roosevelt suddenly cracked down clown on some of the major companies recently charging them with colla collus jn in bids on government work he came out with this charge at a time which undoubtedly will stiffen the backbone of the union agitators and it is not unlikely that by the same token lie he has stiffened the resistance which the steel companies will use yet it does seem that the steel companies made a fatal mistake in the pronouncement they have issued there are too many people who will be inclined to believe that the steel companies have taken advantage of an apparent assurance of collapse of federal supervision there are few who believe that the federal compulsory collective bargaining statute will last very long but the fact that this statute is due for the discard it tome hardly warrants the action which the steel companies have taken they are no more warranted in that than union labor is warranted in taking advantage of the political situation to feather their own nest A real danger in addition to this is that communist agitators are going to use this situation as one vehicle for spreading their propaganda of dissatisfaction and discontent and mr Roosevel ts attack on massed capital unfortunately lends itself to the nefarious schemes of the reds it long has been said that the method of administering laws frequently has creat tax law ed more irria irritation af ion faction among the citizens than the requirements of laws themselves tax laws of whatever kind furnish a splendid example it has always been true since we have had income tax laws that taxpayers have complained more about bureaucratic reau cratic regulation indecision lack of uniformity in administration and generally speaking slow processes of settlement than about the amount they were required to pay the same is true about our customs laws despite the fact that they affect fewer persons directly the other day the treasury issued a notice to customs inspectors that was effective immediately it was a change in policy respecting the quantity of goods an individual may bring in from foreign shores without the payment of the customs tax since 1798 1793 or thereabouts there has been a law which permitted a returning american to bring in commodities of whatever kind he desired except narcotics up to to in value but that law permitted the treasury to make exceptions the treasury notice the other day was an announcement of an exception to this exemption it said that no inbound traveler el er could carry more than one wine wine gallon of liquor without the payment of the customs tax thereon A practice had sprung up since the import duty on liquors has been made so high of returning tourists bringing in almost the full exemption in liquor alone probably the practice was getting very bad and no one questions the judgment of the treasury in determining policy but it is the method employed in making this change that has aroused criticism in ordering the new regulation effective immediately the treasury forced upon hundreds of travelers the necessity for paying duty on their personal stocks of liquor in what amounts to a surprise order they had left foreign shores under one regulation and arrive under another I 1 have no doubt at all that the Treas reason for or changing the rule while the game was being played will result in a considerable amount of revenue for the government but there are many who believe as I 1 do that the department in all fairness should have issued its regulation to become effective at some fixed date in the future in order that citizens who must comply with it would be prepared by proper notification of what they were expected to do and the penalties for failure to obey the incident to which I 1 have referred is an outstanding example of inconsideration and such things always cause citizens to have a hurt feeling a feeling that the government changed the rules without consulting those who must obey the rules 0 union |