Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-11-25
PRESIDENT ELIOT
Of Harvard Gives His Views
on Labor Unions.
Their Work Is to Make Mans Lot
Happier and More Satisfying.
Come to Stay, but as Yet Is Not in
Perfect Shape.

Cambridge, Mass, Nov. 4.-In an adj
dress, Saturday evening, at a private
meeting of the Colonial Club of this
city, of which was given out, Sunday
night, President Eliot made compre-
hensive statement of his views on the
labor unions. He said that the work of
the labor unions must be counted
among the efforts to make the lot of
mankind more satisfying and happier,
and that their strength lay in their be-
lief i'm this work as their mission. lie
then enumerated the conditions which
ne designated as humane conditions OF
employment, those to which laboring
men may rightly might aspire. me
first was a rising wage based on in
creased experience, attainmen's ana
age; second employment after adequate
probation; third, the opportunity Tor
the working man to establish perina-
neDt home; fourth, conditions which
enable him to give his employer gcncr-
Gus service, and to take pride in 1t;
fifth, the right to pension on disable
ity.
These five conditions of humane en-
ployment, President Eliot said, plainly
are not realized in the great American
industries employing unskilled labor,
where the terms of service were often
those of instant dismissal.
The present antagonism of the en-
ployers and the unions was the fault
oh both PARTIES, but on the whole the
former were more to blame because
their situation was more comfortable
and their education superior. The in
dustrial community was under many
obligations to unions for the evils they
have mitigatcd, such as poor sanitary
conditions in factories. an unreasonable
number of hours of work, child labor
and the company store. The ollSarchy
Of capital had combined effectively and
to corresponding combination of labor
ing men was a wholesome check upon
that oligarchy.
There was no question but that the
labor union had come to stay. On the
other hand its cause was injured by
certain evils which were subsersive OF
fundamental American doctrines of
liberty One of these evils was the
limit placed on the number of apprep
tees.
Other evils were the limitation Of
output which destroys the self-respcct
of the efficient workman, and the uni
form wage which has cruel reaction
on the less capable workman because
with a uniform wage, he loses his job
at every slack in business, when as if
he were paid according to his earning
capacity his employer could afford to
keep him the year around.
A fourth evil was the violence which
was an inevitable feature of every
strike in industries employing unskilled
labor. The unskillcd laborcr on strike
has no other weapon, unless it were the
boycott, which was a cruel. cowardly
interference with the rights of the pco-
pie.
President Eliot declared that he saw
grounds for hoping that the re-
lations of capital and labor would be
improved, in spite of their present I'M
Intelligent antagonism, partly by
frank public discussion of abuses, part
~ by prc-arranGcd agreements for
Cancellation or arbitration and partly
by the service which labor union
would render to capital through their
constant command of the labor re
sources of which capital comes in need.