Professional Fire Fighters and Paramedics of North Carolina

The North Carolina Federationist

By:  K. J. Smith, Vice President North Carolina

State Federation of Labor Raleigh District

Due to the activities of city officials who want to keep members of fire departments in abject slaver, insofar as freedom of thought is concerned, and to the interference of buttinskies from the fire insurance companies, the Civil Service Bill for Policemen and Firemen was given the kiss of death in the committee on Counties, Cities and Towns during the last week in February.  Other influences entered into the situation in varying degrees and helped to slaughter the bill.

Included among these other influences are some members of the fire departments and police departments who are known as ward-healers in politics and boot-lickers in their respective departments.  Presentation of the bill has served one good purpose, however, in that it has brought out into the open our enemies both in official camps and in our respective police and fire departments in the State.  We now know who constitute the opposition to the policemen and firemen having the protection that a state-wide civil service bill would give them.

We are not discouraged; although we are somewhat disappointed in finding that some people who had claimed to be our friends are nothing more than tools of insurance companies and city officials.  We also have learned how far-reaching the influence of such men as some who occupy high positions in government and in insurance companies can be exerted.

Fire Fighters of Raleigh deeply resent statements made by Alexander Webb, president of the North Carolina Home Insurance Company, who appeared before the committee and brazenly asserted that there is not a man in the Raleigh Fire Department qualified to become chief.  The committee had no way of knowing and officers of the Fire Fighters Union had no authority to ask questions to bring out the fact that Mr. Webb’s grouch against the fire fighters was purely a personal matter and dated back to the time when his pet friend, Mr. Holland, was fired as chief of the department.

In some of the cities of the State members of the fire departments, so the officials were informed, were induced either by threat or cajolery into signing papers to the effect that such departments did not want the Civil Service Bill. This action on the part of some members of departments added greatly to the weight of opposition. Fire Fighters throughout the State, however, have expressed a determination to look upon this as only the first step in their program, and that two years hence the fire fighters will be in much better position to obtain needed legislation and will push their program to the limit.

I wish to pay my respects to one city manager in the State, Mr. Eddie Knox, of High Point.  Mr. Knox opposed the bill before the committee, but made it plain that his opposition was due entirely to the fact that he considered the bill as being more than a Civil Service Bill and contained features that, in his experience as a city official, would not be good either for the fire fighters or the city.  He stated that he was on record in numerous instances of being in favor both of the organization of fire fighters into their local unions when they so desire, and that he placed nothing in the way of the members of the High Point departments in the organization of their local union.  He favors, he said, a good Civil Service Bill for policemen and firemen and declared that members of such departments needed the protection of a Civil Service Bill and the security that it provided for them.

President C. A. Fink, of the State Federation of Labor, rendered all the assistance that he could in our efforts and gave it as a note of encouragement to us that the opposition to our Civil Service Bill was the same kind of opposition that he was meeting on all measured offered for the protection or benefit of those who work.

I hope to visit all of our local unions throughout the State just as rapidly as I can and, in the meantime, I urge every member to continue in the good work of organizing the firemen of this State.  The stronger our union, the greater will grow our opportunity to command the strength of the legislature to procure such legislation as our membership desires.