The Milwaukee Leader

JOB CONFERENCE
REGARDED STUNT
TO AID BUSINESS
BY LAURENCE TODD
Staff Correspondent
The Federated Press
WASHINGTON—Congress returned from its summer vacation to find the resident population of the national capital stirring with anxious unrest. The railroad situation looks blacker than ever. Unemployment has cast its shadow over millions of families. The administration has developed a real genius for stupidities in dealing with industrial affairs. Hoover's farcical conference on unemployment is about to meet, and even the hardened politicians realize that it is doomed to cover the Harding regime with ridicule, or worse, on the eve of that other venture—the so-called disarmament conference.

When trade union officials read the names of the 22 anti-labor men selected for the unemployment conference, and read the names of the five spokesmen allotted to organized labor, their comment was either one of disgust or of satisfaction. This satisfaction was due to the belief that the labor movement would now be insulted into action in its own defense.

"Won't Get Anywhere."

"They will not get anywhere, and the makeup of the conference shows that it is a farce," said E. C. Davidson, general secretary, International Association of Machinists. "It looks like a conference of business gentlemen to devise a plan to save the Harding administration which they put into office. There is no evidence as yet that they want to discuss measures with organized labor, much less with the unemployed. They are going to discuss their own interests."

While a majority of the conservative labor officials in the Gompers following have ridiculed and opposed the "slave mart" activities of Urban Ledoux, just as the administration forces have done, the police brutalities in riding down the unemployed in New York city brought a swift change in sentiment. Many of the doubters became convinced that Ledoux had discovered the road to public appreciation of the unemployment tragedy. The possibility of Ledoux's coming to Washington to hold a meeting when the Hoover conference opens, was discussed.

Officials Are Quaking.

Administration officials are quaking in their boots lest the promoter of the slave auctions of white men swoop down upon the capital and prove to the politicians and clerks and servants here that the unemployed are becoming desperate. They fervently pray that he will remain in New York. It would be distressingly bad manners to offer working class slaves for sale in the city where Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation.

Aside from unemployment, there is the wage cutting program of Secretary of the Navy Denby and other hard-boiled members of the cabinet to keep the people of the capital city uneasy. And there is the president's friend, Walter Brown, directed from behind the curtain by Hoover, planning to abolish the department of labor as one item in the program for reorganizing the executive divisions of the government. Other items in Brown's program are equally disturbing because they clearly point to a sharp rebuke from the voters in the next election. Then there is the railroad crisis, and the breakdown of coal production for the coming winter, and the threat of a strike that will paralyze the movement of fuel and food.

Bring Reports From Voters.

From the country, the congressmen bring reports that their constituents are not interested in international issues, nor inspired by faith in the disarmament conference. They are very keenly interested, however, in taxation and railroad operation and the control of credit whereby the farmer and the small business man can again be enabled to produce. Everywhere the railroad companies are denounced for their failure to give efficient service although rates were increased to meet their demands. Members from Kansas, Illinois, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania agree that the folks back home are sick of the results of the experiment under Harding, Mellon and Hoover in government for private business.