The St. Johns herald., 1892-08-25
Compulsory Arbitration.

corporation. Why should not thu law say that all corporations em ploying more than a specified mum Der of men should, under certain carefully defined conditions, be ob. liged to arbitrate points of differ. ence arising between them and theil workmen, and to accept the results of such arbitration? If capitalists object to such restrictions, there is nobody to compel them to avail themselves of the advantages of incorporation. Hiding behind cor poration methods, employers are learning to shirk that personal and individual responsibility that form erly mitigated some of the horrors of industrial conflict. The demand for compulsory arbitration in the case of large employing corpora tions is reasonable, and it is neces- sary for the well. being of the State. The Commonwealth of Penpsyl- vania has some rights that deserve consideration; and all this social turmoil and great cost of military interference at Homestead would have been avoided by the simple expedient of law compelling MT. Frlck to justify his new scale, upon demand of the men, in court of arbitration. If he had been sus- tained, the men could have done nothing else than go back to work peaceably. If they had chosen to rebel against the courts decision, the sharp condemnation of public opinion, backed up by the force of the civil authorities, would have made their position hopelessly weak. Property massed in the cor porate form holds at present an un- due advantage over mere individual men. The creature is tending some what to overshadow the creator. The workmen at Homestead had better abandon their insane and criminal resort to weapons of vio- lence, and use the grand weapon that their position as sovereign American freemen gives them. Their remedy is at the ballot. Organized and unorganized labor should pass the word along their lines to cast no votes for any candidate for the legislature or the governors chair who will not pledge himself not on- ly in favor of the exclusion of "Pin- kerton mercenaries," but also in fa- yor of a law compelling large in dustrial corporations to arbitrate questions of difference with their men, and to abide by the results for a year-at the end of which either party may seek and obtain new arbitration.
 Is this plan revolutionary? Well, so are privately supported armies revolutionary, and so anarchistic outbreaks revolutionary. The fact is, that inasmuch as the huge anal carnations of corporate power and wealth are new evolution in our industrial system, and inasmuch as certain phases of the existing soli darity ot workingmen's bodies are 0 new evolution, it is quite time that we should have a correspond ing evolution of the law governing corporations and regulating the re- lations between capital and labor. The corporations will fight against any new measures to control them and to make them better peace keepers, and will proclaim vocifer- ously that doctrinaire socialists and destructive anarchists are trying to despoil them and to take away their heaven born right to do as they will with their own. But their ar guments will be humbug. Their nights are to be respected, but they are only earth born and they must not be run counter to those rights and interests of living men that are indeed heaven-born and inalienable. Let the workingmen quit fighting