The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1894-11-12
THE LABOR QUESTION.
How the w. c. L. L. Can Best lie
the Working People.

How the W. C. L. L. Can Best Help
the Working People.
Boston, Nov. 1.-THE following letter
from Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell to
Miss Frances Willard will be read at the
National w. G. 7. L. Convention, which
assemblies at Cleveland November 10th ::
my Dear Mss Willard: You ask me
to advise the W. G. T. u. how they can
best help the working people, and L am
very glad to give you my views OF the
matter, for L believe they can make them
selves as strong a power for good III this
direction as they have III their own spe-
clal field. But to accomplish this they
must themselves desire justice in the re-
lations between the employers and em-
ployeS, ana must create a public opinion
which will demand it.
I'm this country, with rare exceptions,
justice is seldom found in these relations.
At some times and in some places it is
the labor organizations which are dicta-
torial, while the employers cringe and re-
linquish all their rights 10 maintain peace:
but more frequently the employers are
arbitrary and tyrannical, asserting loudly
that they intend to manage their own
business as they choose, and will not be
interfered with by their working men,
Here Is the weak point: There never
will be justice between the employers
and employees, consequently they will
never be lasting peace, until the en-
ployers recognize the claim of the em-
ployes to voice in the settlement of the
questions relating to making the hours
ana conditions Of labor. 1t can scarcely
be expected that American citizens
who have been born and bred with the
instincts OF tree men will submit tamely
to a system which places their welfare en-
tirely in the hands of others.
This suggestion that the employees
have right to q voice in what is called
their employers business will be new to
many, and will at first seem to be unrea-
sonahle, but the more it is considered the
more justice 1t will show itself to be, and
it will be finally acknowledged to be true.
For the last twenty or thirty wears in
many large industries in England all
questions of wages, hours and conditions
of work have been settled without strike
or lockout by joint boards of consolida-
ton, or arbitration boards, on which the
associations OF the employers and en-
ployes have been represented by dele
gates duly chosen and empowered to
legiSlate for their constituents, and on
these boards the employers and employees
have always found an equal representa-
ton.
SIN our country, and also in Belgium.
boards are known to have met with equal
success, but the practice of justice with
us has been neither so long nor so widely
extended as in England, and, strangely
enough, employers here, instead Of in
stinctively recognizing this as the only
solution of the difficulties of the labor
question, assume a tone OF arbitrary
ownership, and proclaim their right to
issue orders which must be obeyed.
II believe it is by the study of this
phase of the labor question and the advo-
cacy of consolation as means of Dre-
venting disputes of arbitration as a
means of settling them that the members
of the Women's Christian Temperance
Union can best help the working people.
Respectfully yours,
"JosEPHINE SHAW LOWELL"