Dole or Revolution?

Before the gates of Ford Motor Co.'s plant at Dearborn, Mich., ten thousand jobless men last week rioted wildly, stoned police. State employment officials at Chicago reported two jobs for every five applicants. In New York breadlines grew longer and longer. A 20-year record for sheltering men, women and children at the Municipal Lodging House was broken. Employment at the Brooklyn Navy Yard hit rock bottom when the U. S. laid off 1,156 skilled workmen, one-third of the yard's force. Meanwhile businessmen waited for the predicted industrial pickup.

In Washington last week appeared William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on the extent of unemployment. Mr. Green is a conservative labor leader not given to dramatic exaggeration. What he said caused Senators to sit up and pay sharp attention. A. F. of L. statistics: 3,700,000 jobless in February; a billion-dollar wage loss since Jan. 1; one worker out of every four looking for a job. Declared Mr. Green:

"When these unemployment situations come along, workers are simply turned adrift. Men should earn money, not have it doled out to them.* But unless employers change their tactics toward the Unions, we shall face either Federal unemployment insurance [i.e. the dole] to care for the jobless or have a revolution on our hands. The country cannot stand these continual shocks. . . . The unions could help . . . but in great industrial centres like Detroit and Toledo large mass production employers seem to hate the A. F. of L. worse than the Communists. When depressions come, they throw their workers on the street. . . . If trade unions were allowed to function without the relentless opposition of large employers, they could tide their members over seasonal unemployment. . . ."

Promptly thereafter the Senate Commerce Committee, Republican-controlled, reported favorably to the Senate two unemployment relief bills offered by New York's Democratic Senator Robert Ferdinand Wagner. One bill called for a complete monthly collection of employment figures by the Department of Labor to replace the present hit-or-miss system which keeps even the President of the U. S. ignorant as to the number of jobless. The other bill would establish a $150,000,000 public building program which the U. S. on short notice could swing into the breach of any future labor depression. Enactment of these measures was anticipated.

Meanwhile Secretary of Labor James John Davis, than whom none has been more officially cheery in the present labor crisis, explained himself in the April issue of the Financial Diary: "I'm no believer in empty optimism. At the same time one doesn't improve the condition of a sick man by constantly telling him how ill he is. On the contrary we do our best to fill him with courage and confidence. . . . Business is staging a record recovery."

*Britain, keeping tabs through the dole, last week reported its jobless at 1,638,000.

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