The year 1915 will show the dawn of an industrial democracy
in which all men and women shall be absolutely free.
-Frank P Walsh
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Wednesday September 8, 1915
From The Tacoma Times: A Round-Up of Labor Day Speeches
From The Tacoma Times of September 7th:
LABOR SPEAKS OUT ITS MIND
Basil M Manley
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An insistence of industrial democracy and of a sort of military preparedness which will not menace the rights of labor marked Labor day addresses all over the country yesterday.
Getting down to particulars, the labor speakers praised the Manley report of the industrial relations committee; protested with vigor the recent action of the Chicago board of education which destroyed the teachers' union there; denounced the judicial travesty by which John R. Lawson was railroaded to conviction for murder in Colorado; and upheld the progressive modern legislation of California.
Here in Tacoma, Martin Flyzik, himself a miner, asserted that Lawson had been convicted by a picked attorney general, a picked judge and a picked jury of a murder, when it was proved he was 20 miles away at the time of the killing.
"He was convicted of the murder of a man of whom he had never heard, and whom he had never seen," declared Flyzik in his final appeal to laborers to write letters to their congressmen and to President Wilson, demanding a fair trial.
Ernest P. Marsh, head of the State Federation of Labor, insisted that labor should see that the Frank P. Walsh section of the industrial relations committee was published to the world. He warned that the stand-pat press would carefully smother it if it could.
Already, he said, Walsh had felt the invective of this press because his report went straight to the heart of things.
Marsh also roasted the last legislature for its attempt to throttle the initiative and referendum and other progressive laws, and for its ham-stringing of the mothers' pension law. The Times' fight, conducted legally by Attorney Homer Bone, to correct this law, was given a strong implied endorsement.
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JOHNSON SCORES TAFT
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 7.-Gov. Hiram Johnson, speaking to a Labor day meeting, scored ex-President Taft for his recent attacks on recent progressive legislation in California.
"Taft attacks our railway commission," said Johnson, "saying it will drive capital away. To Mr. Taft, a railway commission appointed and conducted by railway politicians is satisfactory; but a commission selected by the people themselves and treating the railroads just like other individuals fills him with dismay."
"The ex-president," he said, "is living in the past politically. The onward sweep of democracy has left him standing bewildered and lost."
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GOMPERS SPEAKES MIND
MARION, Ill., SEPT. 7.-Samuel Gompers denounced the Chicago school board's action in denying its teachers the right to belong to a union, an action taken last week. He said it was a damnable blow at freedom.
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WALSH URGES ACTION
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 7.-Before a tremendous crowd at the fair, Frank P. Walsh, head of the industrial relations commission, predicted that 1915 would see the dawn of an industrial democracy.
He said it was up to the workers to insist that the wrongs which the commission discovered should be righted.
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CELEBRATE VICTORIES
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Sept.7.-Organized labor celebrated the winning of 35 of 50 strikes where in the eight-hour day and better wages were the issue. There was a monster parade.
[Photographs added.]
From The Tacoma Times of September 6, 1915:
~~~~~~~~~~
SOURCE
The Tacoma Times
(Tacoma, Washington)
-Sept 7, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
Basil M Manley, Director of Research
for the Commission on Industrial Relations,
Day Book, Aug 13, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Frank P Walsh, Brooklyn Daily Eagle,
Feb 14, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
Labor Day Cartoon, The Tacoma Times,
Mon Sept 6, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
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Hold the Fort! by Billy Bragg
We meet today in Freedom's cause,
And raise our voices high;
We'll join our hands in union strong,
To battle or to die.
Chorus:
Hold the fort for we are coming-
Union men, be strong.
Side by side we battle onward,
Victory will come.
-One of our oldest Union Songs
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