The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1902-11-26
ELIOT ON LABOR UNIONS.
singularly Fair Statement b
Haryard's President.

Cambridge, Mass, November 23.--In
an address at private meeting OF
tie Colonial Club, of this city, Presi-
dent Eliot, of Harvard, made COM
prehensive statement of his views on
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
belief in this work as their mission.
He then enumerated the conditions,
which he designated as humane condi-
tions of employment-those to which
laboring men may rightly aspire. First,
was rising wage, based on increased
experience attainments and age;
second, steady employment after aae-
quate probation; third, the opportunity
for the workingman to establish per-
manent home; fourth, conditions
which enable him to give his employer
generous service and to take pride in
It; fifth, the right to pension Oh
disability, which give throughout life
relief from one great anxiety, and
thas public consi deration which goes
with steady job and self-respecting,
though humble or unobserved, career.
These five conditions of humane en-
ployment, President Eliot said, were
realized today in Harvard University.
Plainly they were not realized in the
great American industries employing
unskilled labor, whree the terms OF
service were often those Of instant
dismissal. - Another serious difficulty
with American employment was that
it was spasmodic. Complaints from
employees were often made the ground
for dismissal
The present antagonism of employers
and the unions was the fault of both
parties, but on the whole the former
were more to blame, because their
situation was more comfortable and
their education superior. The indus
trial community was under many
obligations to unions, for the evils
which they have mitigated, such as
poor sanitary conditions in factories
and unreasonable hours of work,
child labor and the company store.
The oligarchy of capital had com
bined effectively and the corresponding
combination of laboring men was a
wholesome check upon that oligarchy.
There was no question that the labor
union had come to stay. On the other
hand its cause was injured by certain
evils which we're subversiye OF funda-
mental American doctrines OF liberty.
One of these evils was the limit placed
in the number of apprentices, whereas
in the learned professions every en-
couragement was given to the training
of novices. Other evils were the limit
alton of output, which destroys the
self-respect of the efficient workman,
and the unioform wage, which was a
cruel reaction on the less capable
workmen, because with uniform
wage he loses his job at every slack in
business, whereas if he were paid ac-
cording to his earning capacity his
employer could afford to keep them the
year around. A fourth evil was the
violence which was an inevitable fea-
ture of every strike in industries en-
ploying unskiIled albor. The unskill-
ed laborer on strike had no other
weapon unless it were the boycott,
which was cruel, cowardly interfer-
ence with the rights of all the people.
President Eliot said that he saw
grounds for hoping that the relations
of capital and labor would be I'M
proved, in spite of their present unin-
telligent antgonism, partly by frank
public discussion of abuses, partly by
pre-arranged agreements for concllla-
tion or arbitration and partly by the
service which labor unions would rem
der to capital through their constant
command of the labor resources OF
which capital comes in need.