Do We Need General Welfare League To Balance Power of Organized Labor? Aug. 12, 1919

From the editorial page of The Commonwealth, Scotland Neck, N.C., Tuesday, Aug. 12, 1919

Should There be a General Welfare League?

The American people are confronted, in connection with the Plumb Railroad Plan, by a remarkable and dangerous situation. It is claimed by the author and supporters of this plan that it has the unqualified backing of 6 million members of American Labor organizations, and there is every reason to believe that this claim is substantially accurate.  Unquestionably the plan is the boldest and strongest effort that has ever been put forth in this country to secure the enactment of legislation for the special benefit of a particular class of our citizens with but little regard for the interests of the general putlib. This plan is so revolutionary and comes so clearly under the category of unfair class legislation, that ordinarly it would be rejected forthwith by Congress. However, owing to the fact that it is being urged and practically demanded by a powerfully organized body of 6 million of our people, many of whom are employed in the big vital industries of the country, Congress is compelled to give the measure immediate and careful attention, and may be forced—unless the whole county is quickly aroused and organized for the protection of its interests in the matter—to enact the plan in its present or some slightly modified form.

If such should be the result it will be because there is no general organization through which the vast majority of our people can act in defense of their interests in such matters. Under the circumstances it would seem that there might well be formed, thru out the country, a general welfare league or other similar organization by means of which the great body of our people (who are not connected with any labor organizations, who are interested in the welfare of the country as a whole, and who do not favor the promotion of the interests of any particular class at the expense of the whole) can exercise and protect their rights, and thus prevent any minority, however well organized it may be, from forcing the enactment of unfair and dangerous class legislation like the proposed Plumb Plan.

We do not undertake to say, at this time, whether or not the Government should permanently acquire and operate the railroads, but we do maintain most emphatically that, if the railroads are to be purchased by the Government they should be purchased for the benefit of the whole people and not for the special benefit of any particular class.