The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1901-09-07

with their resulting Industrial warfare
are no longer private matters. In early
times the private interest was indeed
the dominant one. because production
was chiefly an individual matter. Not
long ago over large section Of the civ
ilized world the ideal was the economic
self sufficiency OF the household.
Production and exchange are now
social processes and are no longer ca
pable of regulation by individual action.
Consolidation of railways has been pro-
ceeding rapidly for more than a gen.
eration, and now closely connected with
this consolidation we have our epoch
making so called trust movement 1t
has now come to pass that few men
so few that they can easily be gath
cred together in a single room-control
a considerable percentage Of all the
capital Of the United States and direct
the employment of a large fractional
part of the labor power Of our country.
This means economic lolidarity such
as the world has never known before
The difference in degreeScomes to mean
difference in kind. Th new social
character of industry is recognized
alike by the most conservative econ
omists and the most thoughtful masters
of men.
The prevention Of strikes means SIM
ply this: We must open our eyes to
the clear implications Of our growing
economic solidarity. The orderly and
peaceful operation of our industrial me-
chanism is a matter Of public concern
and must be secured by social action
of one sort and another.
First Of all, it is suggested by the
writer, we should classify businesses
with respect to the degree of public
concern in their continuous operation.
Naturally railways telegraph lines and
generally the agencies Of transportation
and communication, together with
lighting plants and other so called local
public utilities" belong in the class in
which the social interest asserts itself
most vigorously.
Here, clearly, the interest Of society
is paramount, and the duty of preserv-
ing the continuing operation Of the in
dustries providing these services is like
that Of the prevention of crime. In
other words, in these particular cases
we should have courts of conciliation
and arbitration, with adequate power
to settle disputes without q recourse
to private industrial warfare. So far
as other industries are concerned we
could have a further classification into
those with a very large social interest,
as coal mining, and those in which the
social interest in any one economic con-
Germ is relatively small-e. g., mercan-
tile pursuits, those ranking Just below
the "a ilIEays Conc tten. arhitra@
tion boards should be furnished with
sufficient powers to gather together all
the facts in regard to disputes between
employer and employed, to make rec
concentrations to the parties concerned
and to inform and educate public opin-
ion.
No board of this kind should ever be
| clothed with so little power as to be
contemplate, and the reasons why a.
feeble board can accomplish nothing
are similar to those which would rem
der Judges of little use If contempt Of
court were permissible.
We have had strikes in model estab-
lishments, and the recent case of the
National Cash Register company, at
Dayton, o., is especially painful to al
truistically inclined people. Yet it was
never reasonable in our democratic age
to suppose that benevolence alone could
avert strikes. The development Of ideas
of justice and the establishment Of
agencies to secure mutual Justice be-
tween employer and employed must be
placed in the first rank. Let benevo-
lence then be added to justice!
One thought more: The era of indiv-
fdual bargaining has passed away in
transportation, and it is very nearly a
thing Of the past in all large scale pro-
duction. We must adjust ourselves to
collective bargains between organized
labor on the one hand and organized
capital on the other. Not suppression
of organization, but regulation Of or
ganization must be our watchword.-
Professor Richard T. Ely, University Of
Wisconsin.