The Butler County Press

IN JUSTICE Of Present Order Assailed By A. F. of L. Speakers

Cincinnati, Ohio (ILNS)—The question arises in the American Federation of Labor convention whether the most militant utterances comes from within the convention, or from without.

Guests have come to make speeches and the speeches have been filled with resentment against the injustice to which the workers have been victims and with declarations that there must be a better day.

United States Senator James J. Davis came with an arraignment of cruel exploitation, with a demand that the home owner be permitted to keep his home, that the tax burden on the workers be lightened, and with his ringing demand that trade unionism march onward fighting for the rights of labor.

Wages and Jobs Fall

Mary Anderson, head of the women's bureau in the U. S. department of labor, gave statistical proof of the wrongs of the time when she said that while living costs have fallen 18 per cent in the last two years employment has fallen 33 per cent and wages have plunged down 54 per cent.

Spencer Miller, Jr., secretary of the Workers' Education Bureau, having seen much of the United States during the year, pictured the fate of millions as an intolerable thing.

Archbishop John T. McNicholas quoted the description of the present order by Pius XI—“hard, cruel and relentless in a ghastly measure” and delivered such a speech that one reporter wrote on a note to another, “He could be elected president of the A. F. of L. on that platform.”

“Hold fast to your union,” said this church dignitary, the while he advocated a reconstructed social order in which “vocational groups” would function under authority of the state to eliminate “malefactors of great wealth” and give the common man a chance.

“Riches must not remain in the hands of a few,” he said, setting forth three points necessary to justice.

“The second abuse, as the old order gives way,” he went on, “is that of a few rich men holding the power of determining investment, grasping control of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will.”

Thirdly, he said economic dictators must go. He counselled that while we make our government more democratic, our industry must likewise be made more democratic.