North Carolina Newspapers

GftiETtMGS Labor Sunday Messages from National Churches of Christ, U.S.A. GREETINGS Hoosier Scale Shop Sales and Service 1508 East Ozork Phone 9791 GASTONIA, M. C. Kennedy's Drug oTore P retc ription* Carefully Compoiinded Free Fast City Delivery Ed. C Adams, Prop. 213 W. Main Ave. Telephone 5-3401 GASTONIA, N. C. Rankin fir Armstrong QUALITY FURNITURE "One of the Oldest— Established Over 40 Years" 124 S. Marietta Sa. Phone 5-0611 GASTONIA, N. C. GREETINGS Sounders Dry Cleaning Co, 319 E. Franklin Ave. Tel. 5-4012 GASTONIA, N. C Smith's Cut Rots Drug Storos Prescription Specialists 157 W. Moin Are. 121 W. Moin Are. To!. 5-2154 of 5-21*1 GASTONIA, N. C. GREETINGS B. Glean Stroupe GENERAL BUILDING CONTRACTOR 111 Oakdale Phone 5-3822 GASTONIA, N. C. GREETINGS Terminal Restaurant Always Reedy to Serve You 141 W. Franklin Are. Phone 5-0206 GASTONIA, N. C. (Approved by the General Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America and issued through the Department of the Church and Economic Life.) "Tea Am AN •nthrm . . . Yea Nave One father" The health of any society de pends upon the well-being of the members of all of its groups. Every segment of society is important Efficient and honest work is neces sary for our economy. But our com mon responsibility does not end there. In a highly industrialised society, it is not a luxury but a Christian and practical necessity to help the sick and the crippled, assist the needy aged, and care for the young. Neglect of large groups of people who cannot fully help themselves weakens the sense of community and violates a principle from which our society draws its strength. We believe that Christianity pro vides sound and sure principles as guides to action; it gives a sense of direction and creates a will to work together. The American peo ple have common1 basic aims. As productive efficiency increases, there are more goods and services to share and costs of production are lowered. As workers’ purchas ing power expands, management finds larger markets. And we all, as consumers, benefit by this co operation. Furthermore, if equitable solu tions to the common problems of employers and" their employees are mutually sought in good faith they can be found. Thousands of labor contracts are negotiated by union and management representatives each year without bitterness or strikes, and with regard for the public interest. Unfortunately these settlements are rarely featured in the newspapers, while strikes are headlined. Fair settlements arrived at through free and honest bar gaining by men of good will open the way to a better economic and social life for all people. Leaders of labor and management know that the progress of American in- j dustry depends largely upon their ability to co-operate for the com mon good. This is the road for free men of enlightened consciences to follow. Christianity may ask for more, but can ask for no less. Since God is our Father, we must ever strive to work together as brothers. Since the first Labor Sunday Message was issued nearly forty years ago, the economic status of workers has been raised, produc tivity increased, hours shortened, real wages increased, working con ditions improved, the economic well being of the nation lifted, and the democratic way of life strength ened. During this period the at mosphere of public opinion has changed. Increasing numbers of workers have exercised the freedom to decide for themselves whether to organise and have dealt with employers through representatives of their own choice. This freedom of workers has been endorsed and the important social contribution of the labor movement recognised by almost every branch of the Christian Church. During the past years working men and women have made unprecedented gains; the years ahead offer new oppor tunities but also enlarged responsi bility for labor to join with man igement, farmers, consumers, and ither groups in working for the ■ommon good. un tms t.aoor uay it is nttinpr hat the National Council of Churches recognise the many Chris tian laymen who have worked to ichieve these benefits for them selves and their fellow men. We loin in mourning the loss of Wil liam Green and Philip Murray, outstanding Christian laymen in organised labor. Leadership in the labor movement should be increas ingly appreciated by the people of >ur churches as an important Christian vocation. "Boar Oae Another's Burdens" We are grateful to God for the generally high level of well-being in the United States which has de veloped under conditions of free dom. But these favorable circum stances call for more than grati } tude in word of feeling. They sum- j t mon Christians to a deep sense of; ' humility and an earnest commit ment to share with people as j worthy as ourselves who are less LABOR DAY GREETINGS ALEXANDER MACHINE CO., INC. 1414 West Franklin Avp. GASTONIA, NORTH CAROLINA fortunate. We know that some mil lions of the people even in this country are living below standards which we accept as important to the “good life”; but grim hunger is faced by nearly three out of four of the world's population. Our present position in the world places upon us the responsibility to help less fortunate people to help them selves. We must give with an un derstanding heart; the extent of our help can be measured only by Today powerful and insidious a sensitive Christian conscience, forces threaten freedom. Enlight ened men and women of labor were among the first to see the evil and danger of both fascism and Soviet communism and have long and ef fectively opposed them. Through the leadership which the American labor movement, together with that of many other important segments of our society, has given to the cause of world freedom, all our freedoms have been made more se cure. In working for civil rights, in creased production, job opportuni ties, adequate wages, social respon sibility, and a free world communi ty we are working for each other, for ourselves, and for God who seeks to realise His purpose of jus tice and freedom in the affairs of men. Toward the achievement of these aims, all groups in our na tion are interdependent, and we are bound together in the need and purpose to promote our common freedoms. Freedom to worship and to speak according to the dictates of one’s conscience is inseparable from freedom of the mind and freedom to work under conditions which the worker has had a part in determining. A threat to one freedom is a threat to all freedoms. Labor-Management Partnerships Are Desirable Goals By Rev. R. A. McGowan, Director Social Action Department Xational Catholic Welfare Conference L*b«r Day, 1963, is an occasion for qualified gratitude and for guarded and realistic optmism. Genuine, if limited progress has been registered in recent years. More people are gainfully employed than at any other time in the his tory of the United States. More employees than ever before are now organised into bona flde trade unions. The standard of living bf most at the working people is rela tively good in spite of the continu ing problem of inflation. Significant progress has been made in recent years ia the Add of race relations, and there are many encouraging indications that even greater pro gress can be expected within the foreseeable future. For these and other recent ad vances in the field of social justice we can be very thankful. Never theless, we are still faced with a number of serious economic prob lems, thoughtful consideration of which will serve to put us on our guard against the deadly virus of i complacency. The first and by far the most serious of these problems has to do with our ability to avoid the chaos and disaster of another major depression if and when the cold war. through the mercy of God, eventually comes to an end. So long as this problem remains un solved, our country cannot afford to be complacent about the condi-' tion of its economic health. At the present time we are operating, simultaneously, two fabulously suc cessful systems of production—one for the implements of war and an other for the necessities and lux uries of civilian life. It would be presumptuous on the part of the American people and their elected representatives to minimise or underestimate the dif ficulty of maintaining full employ ment if and when war production is severely curtailed. This is not an insoluble problem, but its solu tion will require the greatest pos- | sible measure of intelligent and un selfish cooperation. There is every reason to anticipate that our na tional economy will continue to im prove under peafeetime conditions. The history of the United States clearly demonstrates that our peo ple have a genius for adapting and applying the techniques of wartime production to peaceful purposes. Neither can we afford to be com placent about the fact that so many families live so poorly|in the weal thiest country in the history of the human race. Surely a nation which can do as much as ours is doing at the present time—and very prop erly so—to resist Communist ag gression in the Far East and to prepare itself and other countries against possible Communist aggres sion in other parts of the world is economically capable of supporting minimum standards of frugal com fort for all Ha eitisens. Irtwullml RaptniMHa Closely related to this problem la our growing reluctance as a nation to come to the economic, as opposed to the purely military, assistance of less favored nations. Some of our impoverished allies in the cold war are beginning to suspect, per haps with a certain degree of at least superficial justification, that we attach too much importance, relatively, to bombers and battle ships, too little to tractors and hy brid corn and elementary sanitary improvements for the disadvantag ed people of the so-called under developed areas. Let us hope and pray that the American people will quickly dispel these ominous fears and suspicions by continuing to keep faith with our national tra dition of charity and generosity. We fwe it to ourselves and to the rest of the world to be as generous as possible in administering the abundant riches which Almighty God has temporarily placed in our trust as stewards of His posses sions and almoners of His gracious bounty. In view of these and other prob lems confronting our beloved coun try in this period of continuing crisis there is room today for grat itude, surely, but there is also room for humility and penitence and a firm resolve to change for the bet ter with the ever-present and never-failing assistance of the grace of God. There was a time in the history of this country when many prop* erty owners and workers regarded their personal rights as absolute. In economic life—as contrasted with domestic life, which at that time was more directly influenced by Christian morality—they acted as though they were alone in God's universe or as though they and their neighbors were meant to be enemies one of another. This was utterly false in theory and trag ically harmful in practice. Thanks be to God, we are slowly getting over that way of thinking and acting in the field of economics. The right to own property and the right to secure an adequate income from ownership, and the right to work and secure an adequate in come from ownership, and the right to work and secure an adequate income from personal labor are genuine rights, necessary for the welfare of the individual as well as for the common good of society. It should have been obvious all along, however, to a Christian nation that these are qualified or limited rights —qualified and limited so that oth er people, too, may live from the bounty of the good earth over which God alone, as the Creator of the universe, can lay claim to an absolute right of ownership. Chsaf far tbs isttst The basic reason for gratitude and optimism on Labor Day, 1953, is the fact that more of us than ever before in the history of the United States are beginning to recognise the importance of the re lationship between the persona] dignity of the individual on the one hand and the brotherhood of man on the other. The basic reason for humility and penitence is that, not enough of us have turned our backs once and for all on the theory of individualism which exaggerated personal rights and prerogatives beyond all reason, at the expense of human brotherhood. inis is a very serious matter. For several hundred years the dominant emphasis in the economic life of the so-called Western world was placed, exaggeratedly, on per sonal rights and personal strength at the expense of human brother hood. Similarly, in the larger field of political and economic action, the dominant emphasis was placed on national rights and national strength at the expenle of interna tional brotherhood. One might leg itimately substitute here for per sonal strength and national strength the more theologically ac curate words personal pride and greed and national pride and greed. The fearful crisis of this gener ation arises, on the one hand, from our own failure in the Western world to complete the urgent task of combining in practice personal and national rights with personal brotherhood and inter nation a 1 brotherhood, and, on the other hand, from the ruthless and absolute re jection or denial of personal digni ty and national worth by aggres sive totalitarian governments. We are reaping the bitter fruits of the two great errors of our time. The ! one error magnifies and exagger ates the importance of the isolated individual without regard for th* right* of others and without regart for the lights of the community The other magnifies the group— the race, the class, or the nation— without retard for the God-given dignity and righto of the individual If we in the United 8tate* have not yet fully recanted and repent ed of the former error, we have done ao in part. We have made a good beginning in our effort* to reconcile the rights of the individ ual in economic life with the Cor responding righto of the communi ty. Increasingly as time goes on, we are coming to recognise the im portance of human brotherhood, and we are honestly striving to give it practical expression to the economic institutions of our coun try. As we pause on the occasion of Labor Day to express our gratitude for this salutary improvement in our national life, let us ask Al mighty God for the grace to make even greater progress in the criti cal years that lie ahead. There hangs over us the ever-present threat of virtual annihilation by atomic warfare. Atomic war or ao atomic war, let us place our trust in the mercy and goodness of God, and confidently go about putting eur own house to order, asking Ghrist our Brother to show us the way to effect a more perfect recon ciliation, in our economic life, be tween the respective claims of flic individual and the community. The most serious defect fa the economic life of the United States, is that some employers and em ployees, even when they have re pented of the old error of exag erated individualism, have yet Co establish an adequate system of labor-management cooperation as a practical expression of their broth erly dependence upon one another and as a practical means of ful filling their mutual responsibilities to society as a whole. The fault is on both sides. The chief fault of some in management has been that of opposing or hampering union organizing, opposing adequate leg islation for the protection of Che working people, and of not taking enough initiative in fostering new methods of labor-management co- , operation. On the other hawk Che fault of some in the labor move ment has been one of apathy and indifference in face of the need for labor-management cooperation and the need for labor participation in management, profits and owner ship. Signi of Progress Let it he emphasised, again, how ever, that in several important re spects labor and management are doing n better job than ever before. Collective bargaining is becoming more mature, thanks to the more cooperative attitude of both par ties. Joint production committees in individual plants or companies have proved effective, and their number is increasing. Profit shar ing is rapidly expanding and is now considered to be compatible with bona fide trade unionism. These and similar developments at the plant or company levdl are very encouraging and deserve to be extended as widely and as rapidly as possible. In addition, however, labor and management must be encouraged to raise their sights beyond the plant or the company level to the industry level and to the level of the na tional economy. There is a natural community, a natural brotherhood, as it were, of all the people in any given industry, employers and em ployees alike, in addition to the natural brotherhood which exists in individual plants or com panic*. It ' remains for labor'and management, with the encouragement of gov* eminent, to establish Industry-wide organizations or associates through which this natural community can effectively carry out its functions and fulfill its responsibilities. The natural brotherhood of employers land employees at the industry level cannot be expected to sustain itself sad express itself effectively with out benefit of adequate industry wide organization. ' Furthermore, inasmuch as all | industries, including agriculture, .intimately depend upon one another 'in the common task of furnishing consumers with the proper quan tity and quality of goods and serv ices on fsir terms to consumers and producers alike, ft is necessary that these industry-wide councils or associations be wti a did across in dustry borders and federated into !• nations! economic council which would be charged with the respon sibility of coordinating the activi ties of the separate industry coun cils in such a way as to safeguard the interests of consumers and promote the general welfare. Sncb an integrated pattern ef or ganized economic partnership can not he expected to ibnbp over night, nor should it he imposed from the top hgr government. It will have to Be developed gradually by means of a connected series of voluntary agreements among the interested parties. On the other hand, however, the principle of gradualism should not be ration alized or perverted into an excuse for apathy or indifference. If it is advisable to make haute slowly, it is also imperative to keep moving uninterruptedly in the right direc tion. Happily, we have already begun to advance towards the desired goal. There is already a greater degree of effective labor-manage ment cooperation in the United Staten than is generally recognised. The process of growth is relatively dow and sometimes rather dis heartening. Nevertheless there is no reason to be unduly pessimistic •boot the future. The tide has un mistakably turned in the right di rection. A self-organized and self governing partnership, by indus tries and professions, is definitely in the mating, Let ns hope and pray that Mhor, management, ag riculture, and the profession* will do everything they possibly can to hasten its establishment, for the good of our own nation and, fur thermore, am » shining example of Christian brotherhood to a world which is now bring sorely tsmptsd to sell itself into slavery of totali tarianism for generations or cen turies to can*. As they continue to work towards the desired goal of a full-fledged partnership in the internet of the general welfares labor and manage ment are called spon to examine and appraise their current prac tices in the light of Christian social ethics. In spite «ff the encourag ing progress of recent years, both groups have need of self examina tion and count, udh benefit to all,, instruct their members on the harmful effects of dishonesty, self ishness, and avarice. Heretofore^ the affbets ef teher have been conoentrated, necessarily, on organising the enotgaaiaod, achieving recognition of unions and establishing the bests procedures of collective bargaining. Tbeee ob jectives have* yet to be attained in certain areas, far those areas, however, where emptepee are near protected by strong unions, these unions have an obligation to carry out faithfully certain reepoosThir ties to them* aunt members, to the employers with whom they bargain, •nd to the general pubfic. Spemfa cally, for example, they should do everything possible to make union ism the hallmark, of honest, eompe tent, and responsibite workmanship and should1 effectively disciple those workers whose performance on the job falte short ef the standards agreed to with their employer through- the process of collective bargaining. fCwetiaaed mm Page 7) GASTONIA BRUSH COMPANY „ QUALITY TEXTILE MUSHES Second & Linwood Streets Hmm 5-2422 Gastonia, N. C. r 1,1 ■ •" I .. • COMPLIMENTS SHELBY SUPPLY COMPANY / General Mill Supplies and Hardware jg.,- v - .. ‘V- ■■ ' ' # - Phone 5271 Shelby, N. C. Greetings Gaston County Dyeing Machine Company • Stanley, N. C.