The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.65/No.8            February 26, 2001 
 
 
25 and 50 years ago
 
February 27, 1976
Representatives of the Wounded Knee Survivors' Association told a Senate subcommittee recently that had the U.S. government had its way, there would have been no survivors of the 1890 massacre of Sioux Indians.

After the army's slaughter of defenseless men, women, and children, "the dead were left out there for days, the wounded were left out there to freeze to death," Rev. Simon Looking Elk told the committee.

A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings February 5 and 6 to consider a bill that would provide $3,000 compensation to each of the Wounded Knee survivors and their descendants. The Indian group views the payment as a "token," but also an important acknowledgment of government wrongs against the Indian people.

The army's response has been to deny that the killing of an estimated 90 braves and 200 women and children on December 29, 1890, was a massacre.

The army showed "great restraint and compassion," states its twenty-four-page report. And it would be "highly inequitable" to compensate Big Foot and many of his "belligerent followers" who were responsible for provoking the confrontation!

The parallel between the nineteenth century slaughter and present-day crimes such as Vietnam's My Lai is an obvious one.  
 
February 26, 1951
The withdrawal of the three labor members from the Wage Stabilization Board on Feb. 16 has created a crisis in Truman's war mobilization plans and in the 18-year coalition between the labor leadership and the Democratic administration.

Resignation of the labor representatives was forced by the burning resentment of the workers. They resent Truman's vicious strikebreaking tactics against the railroad workers and the wage-freeze which the Big Business administration seeks to impose despite runaway prices.

The need for the labor bureaucracy to act was aptly described by columnist Doris Fleeson in the Feb. 19 N.Y. Post: "Labor's people aren't yessing their bosses but are pressing for solutions for the bread-and-butter problems of life. So long as inflation control remains ineffective, labor leaders have to fight--or lose their own jobs."

The wage-freeze order backed by the industry and "public" members of the WSB would peg wages to ten percent above the Jan. 1950 level.

This was described by the labor members of the board as "a series of penalties and restrictions--imposed at a time when prices are continuing their upward rise. The wage formula is inflexible, inequitable and unworkable."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home