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Milty's Mag, June 1941

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spends many millions every year), the victims are generally those on the other side, i.e., labor. For every law "enforcement" officer hurt there are 100 workmen hurt.
  
   "..we feel that they have set themselves up as a government coexisting with our own, an "invisible empire," but not one run on the republican lines that are designed to serve the wishes of the majority of the whole citizenry." (As an off-side remark -- watch these people who use the word "republican" rather than "democratic.") Unions exist for the purpose of increasing the standard of living of the working class and keeping it there. Theirs is the very pragmatic purpose of getting as much for their members as they can. The working class is the majority of the citizenry. Speer must think that the unions exist for the benefit of the people that "run" them, rather than the membership. It doesn't occur to him that when tens of thousands of workers, many of them with families to food, and with little enough money to keep going in normal times, go out on strike with the future blank, they are doing something pretty serious, and that maybe they mean what they are doing.

   "Moreover, rejecting as we do communism with a small c, we deny the need for labor unions to exist, feeling that on the whole they have militated against the general economic well-being, that such benefits as they have brot could have been gained much more easily and securely and with less blood and tears had half the devotion shown in organizing labor been turned into the legitimate sphere of political activity." As the semanticists would put it, this seems to me to be a group of meaningless noises strung together. Sometimes I wonder whether it is worthwhile answering this sentence, it is such a ridiculous thing. This is not a philosophy club. We are not interested in whether Jack "fools" that they have militated against the general well-being. We want to look up figures and facts and find out how much has been gained in wages and better conditions and the incalculable gains of morale and pride.

   Jack should define what he means by "the legitimate sphere of political activity." Be that as it may, a lobby to operate in opposition to the powerful lobbies of business must be pretty strong to get anywhere. An individual worker couldn't be expected to get anywhere, could he? But a powerful lobby means an orgnization, and an organization is a union. Jack contradicts himself; his sentence is meaningless. Not only internally, but factually, For what does Speer think Mr. Lewis does with his spare time in Washington? How were the Wagner Labor Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and all of the employee benefits that Jack himself works under brought about, other than by the legitimate political activities of the unions? And wait; you haven't seen the end of it. The organization is just being accomplished. The activity is just beginning. 

   Why speak only of "blood and tears"? Why not mention the majority of labor disputes which are settled by arbitration and agreement? The newspapers don't talk very much about those. They would have it that whenever there is a labor dispute there automatically follows a strike and violence. Whereas strikes and violence is the exception, rather than the rule, and would never exist at all, were it not for the refusal of employers to make concessions.

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spends many millions every year), the victims are generally those on the other side, i.e., labor. For every law "enforcement" officer hurt there are 100 workmen hurt. "..we feel that they have set themselves up as a government coexisting with our own, an "invisible empire," but not one run on the republican lines that are designed to serve the wishes of the majority of the whole citizenry." (As an off-side remark -- watch these people who use the word "republican" rather than "democratic.") Unions exist for the purpose of increasing the standard of living of the working class and keeping it there. Theirs is the very pragmatic purpose of getting as much for their members as they can. The working class is the majority of the citizenry. Speer must think that the unions exist for the benefit of the people that "run" them, rather than the membership. It doesn't occur to him that when tens of thousands of workers, many of them with families to food, and with little enough money to keep going in normal times, go out on strike with the future blank, they are doing something pretty serious, and that maybe they mean what they are doing. "Moreover, rejecting as we do communism with a small c, we deny the need for labor unions to exist, feeling that on the whole they have militated against the general economic well-being, that such benefits as they have brot could have been gained much more easily and securely and with less blood and tears had half the devotion shown in organizing labor been turned into the legitimate sphere of political activity." As the semanticists would put it, this seems to me to be a group of meaningless noises strung together. Sometimes I wonder whether it is worthwhile answering this sentence, it is such a ridiculous thing. This is not a philosophy club. We are not interested in whether Jack "fools" that they have militated against the general well-being. We want to look up figures and facts and find out how much has been gained in wages and better conditions and the incalculable gains of morale and pride. Jack should define what he means by "the legitimate sphere of political activity." Be that as it may, a lobby to operate in opposition to the powerful lobbies of business must be pretty strong to get anywhere. An individual worker couldn't be expected to get anywhere, could he? But a powerful lobby means an orgnization, and an organization is a union. Jack contradicts himself; his sentence is meaningless. Not only internally, but factually, For what does Speer think Mr. Lewis does with his spare time in Washington? How were the Wagner Labor Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and all of the employee benefits that Jack himself works under brought about, other than by the legitimate political activities of the unions? And wait; you haven't seen the end of it. The organization is just being accomplished. The activity is just beginning. Why speak only of "blood and tears"? Why not mention the majority of labor disputes which are settled by arbitration and agreement? The newspapers don't talk very much about those. They would have it that whenever there is a labor dispute there automatically follows a strike and violence. Whereas strikes and violence is the exception, rather than the rule, and would never exist at all, were it not for the refusal of employers to make concessions.