dots-menu
×

Home  »  Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen  »  Page 381

Jacob A. Riis (1849–1914). Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen. 1904.

Page 381

  Miller was an assistant foreman in the government bookbindery. He was discharged by the public printer, upon the demand of organized labor, on charges of “flagrant non-unionism,” he having been expelled from Local Union No. 4 of the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders. His discharge was in defiance of the civil service laws, and the matter having come before the President, he ordered that he be reinstated. In doing so he pointed to this finding of the anthracite coal strike commission which organized labor had accepted: It is adjudged and awarded that no person shall be refused employment or in any way discriminated against on account of membership or non-membership in any labor organization, and that there shall be no discrimination against or interference with any employé who is not a member of any labor organization by members of such organization.
  “It is, of course,” was the President’s comment, “mere elementary decency to require that all the government departments shall be handled in accordance with the principle thus clearly and fearlessly ennunciated.” But there are people who do not understand, on both sides of the line. Seventy-two unions in the