The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.63/No.32           September 20, 1999 
 
 
25 And 50 Years Ago  

September 20, 1974
Vice-president-designate Nelson Rockefeller commended President Ford's pardon of Nixon, saying it was an act "of conscience, compassion, and courage."

"Rockefeller has a lot of nerve commending the pardon," George Preston, a Black teacher at the City College of New York, told The Militant in an on-the-street interview on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

"What about Attica?" Preston continued. "Rockefeller didn't pardon those brothers at Attica! Where was Rockefeller's conscience, where was his compassion, where was his courage when he ordered those brothers killed?!"

Why were the Attica inmates murdered? Because they were fighting against the inhuman conditions they were forced to live under.

Sixty-one of these men, who were standing up for their dignity as human beings, are the ones who have been indicted for the Attica revolt. Not a single prison guard, state trooper, National Guard, or government official faces any charges stemming from the bloody crushing of that rebellion. The grand jury that indicted the 61 Attica Brothers let Rockefeller and Nixon remain at large.

George Preston said: "Nixon is a criminal. He should be in jail, but if they're going to give him an unconditional pardon they should give all the criminals - whatever that means - and unconditional pardon too.

September 19, 1949
Through his steel "fact-finding" board, Truman has leveled a crippling blow at the "fourth round" wage drive of the CIO. The board's report rejects any wage increase for the CIO steel workers and urges a wage freeze for all industry.

The board coupled its ban on wage increases with a statement of economic doctrine that has disastrous implications for all future wage demands of labor. The board denied that higher profits and productivity justify higher wages.

Philip Murray, president of both the CIO and the United Steel Workers, had committed the union in advance to accept anything the board proposed, no matter how meager. He promptly accepted the board's report because it contained a sop by way of recommendation for company financed health insurance and pensions at a miserably low level.

If the steel workers are now forced to strike, they enter the struggle under the tremendous handicap of the Truman board's report which would limit their aims to insurance and pensions that would cost the companies not more than 8 cents an hour average per worker and would not add a penny to their immediate incomes. How much better off the workers would have been if Murray had not saddled them with Truman's board and its recommendations. But they may be forced to fight in spite of all handicaps for the defense of their union and living standards.

 
 
 
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