Page:William F. Dunne - The Threat to the Labor Movement (1927).pdf/29

 manipulate American labor organizations for political ends?"

Not so one could notice it. On the contrary, the president and secretary of the Illinois State Federation of Labor and the chairman and secretary of the Chicago Federation of Labor openly supported Smith before and after the exposure of the Insull slush fund.

What is true in Illinois of the republican party is true in New York of the democrat party—Tammany Hall. It is public knowledge that, the great majority of the New York unions, including certain sections of the needle trades unions, where the Communists are now charged with "attempts to manipulate for political ends," are appendages of the Tammany Hall political machine.

President Ryan of the New York Central Labor Council, and the executive of the Council itself, in the New York Times for Jan. 16, defended Tammany Hall's "industrial squad"—the "bomb squad" of the police department which specializes in slugging pickets, arresting strikers and suppressing working class activities.

John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, used his position openly in an attempt to swing the union in support of Coolidge. Gompers was for years, and Green is now, a wheelhorse of the democrat party chariot.

Allow us to say, to the capitalist party henchmen holding positions in the unions, and to the New York Times, The Post and other of their capitalist defenders, with all the politeness that we can muster, that we Communists were not born yesterday and that we understand you very well indeed. We understand what you are saying and so do many thousands of workers who are not ready to incur the blacklist in an open struggle with you just yet.

For what you are saying is just this:

The Washington (D. C.) Star sounds the note of "peace". It is against Communists because

It is becoming so unusual for a union to strike in America that a whole theory is being based on the absence of strike movements in which American workers formerly engaged. The inference is that strikes are unnecessary and that only the callous Communists will inflict such struggles upon the masses. This is the spiritual justification of the drive against militant unionism but the theory is as false as its principal proponents are deep in collusion with the bosses and the political parties of the bosses.