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No. 4                                                                                                   August, 1938

Issued by the Successors of Shays
(Boston Branch)

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THE PAST IS THE KEY TO THE PRESENT
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A journal of current events presented on the basis of the theory of social continuity.

We attempt to explain rather than to advocate.

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Temporary mailing address, c/o Parker Greene, 905 Central Sq. Bldg., Cambridge, Mass.

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   Issued monthly. Subscription in U.S., $1 per year, 50¢ for 6 months. 

        For discussion groups, 25¢ a year for each subscription over one (one full year's subscription being charged for at usual rates).

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We invite news contributions and constructive criticism from our readers.

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WAGNER LABOR ACT BOOMERANGS ON UNIONS

                The national Wagner Labor Relations Act, together with various State laws of similar nature popularly called "Baby Wagners," is showing a side which was probably not contemplated by its fanatical supporters in certain labor union movements.
              In the Committee for Industrial Organisation's efforts to organise the truckmen in Portland, Maine, one Congdon, the owner of a trucking concern, told the CIO's local organiser that he would be willing to deal with the CIO if and only if he were convinced that a majority of his employees wished to join that organisation. The CIO responded by peremptory demands that he coerce his employees into the CIO in violation of the express provisions of the Wagner Act; whereat Congdon filed suit for an injunction and for accounting for damages against the CIO for violation of the Wagner Act, which provided special procedures for court orders and injunctions to prevent violations of the Act. The court testimony of Connery, the CIO organiser, as to methods used, makes a much stronger case against the union under the Wagner Act than Congdon's original complaint.
                We cannot find that any definite decision has been rendered in the case so far. A temporary injunction against the union was asked for, pending final decision; but the use of the temporary injunction in labor disputes, already forbidden in Massachusetts, is rapidly being discredited in many other States, this being the kind of "labor injunction" that has provoked the most criticism in the past on the ground of violation of civil liberties. Consequently the court has been taking plenty of time to deliberate, and it probably will not be in time to be able to issue an effective injunction. Comments made in court by the judges, however, indicate that, at the least, an accounting for damages will be granted, which, as the CIO does not appear to have been legally incorporated anywhere, may readily involve personal liability for damages on the part of any and every member of the CIO―the organisation does not appear to care enough about its members to take this elementary legal precaution to protect each individual member from having to pay full damages for every act of the organisation.
                The fact is that this much-touted bit of legislation, like all other attempts to improve or repair an unbreakable economic system by legislation, really is unable to accomplish any real change in the economic system outside of occasionally gumming the works still further. In this case, the CIO, which is fundamentally based on coercion and fundamentally opposed to the most elementary American principles of equal individual rights for all, attempted to apply this coercion through an employer and immediately fell afoul of the Wagner Act's provisions against employer domination. The fact, however, is also that these union organisations, in their own capacity of employers of labor, are equally guilty of violating the Wagner Act in many ways. For instance, the employees of CIO headquarters at 16th and H Sts. in Washington, and at various local headquarters, have not the privilege of joining a labor organisation not dominated, controlled, and financed by their employer―a major and direct violation of the Wagner Act. Said employees are probably willing to be without collective remedy against their employer―but how would they regard it if employees in other firms felt the same way: would they take that as an excuse for a company union?
                Of course, this will not make the first time, or the last, that the trapper gets caught in the trap he sets for others.
                Other court decisions interpreting the Wagner act are: One from a Federal court in Illinois ruling that a sit-down strike places employees outside the protection of the Act; and one from a Philadelphia ruling that a jurisdictional dispute between rival unions is not a "labor dispute" within the meaning and protection of the Act, but may be considered as an attempt to violate the act by using an unauthorized means of settling the question of recognition where specific election procedure is provided for. If the Illinois decision is sustained by the Supreme Court, the effect would be similar to that of the Massachusetts "Baby Wagner," which specifically declares a sit-down strike to be an "unfair labor practice."
                As to further adverse effects of the Wagner Act on movements for employee control of industry, permit us to point out that, as the law stands, an unfriendly regulative board could issue a "cease and desist" order to put any worker's co-operative out of existence at one fell swoop. For example, in the so-called Leighton type of co-operative, which requires at least 99% of the membership to be employees of the co-operative at all times, a membership meeting is obviously a labor organisation (being composed of employees) which is completely dominated and financed by the employer. Many other forms of employee management, actual or proposed,* may be forced to use various legal loopholes and circumventions in order to exist unless the Wagner Act is modified so as to exempt from the "domination" provision all cases where the organisation of employees is itself the employer; this would also take care of the instance of CIO headquarters referred to above.
                But for cases like the Portland case, even such modification does not answer the purpose; the union, in that case, has had a collision with American continuities, and is likely to come out second best in the encounter.

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                We have heard a comparison made between the President and the ex-President, running somewhat as follows: Hoover's administration produced rugged individualism, while Roosevelt's administration produces ragged individuals. We can, however, doubt the accuracy of both sides of that dilemma. No administration has had anything that could be called individualism except for a few in control of things; while the New Deal does not produce any kind of individuals, ragged or otherwise, but rather tends to suppress any individuality that may exist in this country, an effort to which, fortunately, America has a wonderful amount of resistive power.

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DID YOU KNOW THAT―

                No one has ever yet been convicted of treason against the United States.

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HEAVEN ON HUDSON

                "Father Divine," the well-known religious revivalist of the Harlem section of New York, has recently purchased, to be used as one of his "Heavens," a large tract of land on the Hudson River directly opposite the ancestral Roosevelt estate known as Hyde Park.
                There is something appropriate in this. Both father Divine and the President are demagogic spellbinders using almost identical methods. Where Father Divine claims to be God, Roosevelt claims to be what appears to be the exact equivalent. Father Divine's handouts of chicken and watermelon to his followers―paid for out of the contributions he has collected from them―are exactly parallelled to Roosevelt's methods of gaining followers by bribing them with what is essentially their own foods. And both leaders demand from their followers extravagant songs of praise in return for their charity handouts.
                It is indeed a well-matched pair that now face one another over the Hudson―two religious leaders, each claiming to be God, and both deceiving the people with hand-outs that keep them in subjection.

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"WOMEN'S REBELLION"

                We are in receipt of a couple of leaflets from an organisation calling itself the "Women's Rebellion," with headquarters in Suffern, N.Y. It appears to be mainly a movement against the program of excessive taxation and spending indulged in by the present administration.
                Continuity News has no special interest in picking out one politician as against another, nor in the tax issue as such. Our criticisms of the New Deal have been based entirely on explaining the administration's persistent attempts to fly in the face of all American continuity and tradition.
                American continuities have caused widespread revulsion all over the country against over-concentration of government, against over-regulation, and against overweening ambitions for power on the part of those in the highest places. No organised movement has yet appeared that is capable of directing these tendencies to a useful purpose, but opposition is irrepressible in spite of the fact, and is bound to sweep out the New Deal racketeers, though we cannot honestly state that their successors are likely to be any improvement―they probably will not be, if they come from either the Democratic or Republican party.
                Occasional movements, however, call attention to certain of the evils of existing administrations; and the "Women's Rebellion," like other movements of the category mentioned, may possibly have considerable indirect effect on the complexion of things in Washington.
                In this way, it would be somewhat like the Lexington uprising of 1934 against the Blue Eagle, which, starting in an old-style town meeting in Lexington, Mass., and then issuing resolutions against government interference through a specially issued paper called the Minute Man which came out on the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, succeeded in stirring up an increasing protest against the NRA which ultimately found its expression in the Supreme Court's decision in 1935 ruling the NRA unconstitutional. In contrast with the New Deal liars who claim every bit of opposition is "Big Business," there appears to have been almost no such element behind the Lexington town meeting of April, 1934.
                The "Women's Rebellion" may have indirect effects like the Lexington affair if they can steer clear of any tie-up with any active politicians, though this looks at present doubtful.

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                The above pattern is a natural consequence of American continuity, as it is really a logical result of the tendency of Americans to resent being told by organisations or authorities what they should think.
              The Gallup Poll of Georgia indicates that the President's appeal to nominate his favorite candidate there has resulted in a 2 to 1 opinion against that candidate. This poll, whatever may have been the merits or demerits of its statistical theory (we cannot claim to judge that) has so far made the most accurate guesses on elections, without any apparent prejudice one way or the other. Continuity News is not presenting details of charges and counter-charges hurled in campaign fights. We presume, when politicians call each other names, that they are merely telling what they know about one another.

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MORE NEW DEAL DEFINITIONS

               Meaning of a few more terms, as used by administration authorities and their followers:

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                In regard to the last of the above names, "realism" could also include that favorite coward's alibi: choosing the least of two evils. No one who has well-defined principles and the courage of his convictions would deliberately abandon them to do that. Had Americans chosen the least of two evils when England gave them the choice of cringing being beaten by force, there would be no United States now; but, far from choosing the least of two evils, Americans chose independence, and those who chose "the least of two evils," the Tories, found living more comfortable elsewhere than in this country.

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* See Geprodis