The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-11-24
TONED DOWN.
President Eliot Modifies His
Views on Labor Unions.

Cambridge, Mass, Nov. 24-In an adj
dress at a private meeting of the Colo
NAL club of this city. President. Eliot of
Harvard made a comprehensive state
ment of his views of 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 the belief in this work as their mis-
sion. He then enumerated the condi-
lions of employment-those to which Ia
boring men may rightly aspire. First
was rising wage based on increased
experience, attachments and age; sec
ond, steady employment after adequate
probation; third, the opportunity for the
workingman to establish a permanent
home; fourth. conditions which enable
him to give his employer generous serv-
ice and to take pride in it; fifth. the
right to a pension on diSa bility, which
gives through life relief from one great
anxiety. and that public consideration
which goes with a steady job and a self
respecting though humble career.
These five conditions of humane en-
pigment, President Eliot said, We're re-
allied today in Harvard university.
Plainly, they were not realized in the
great American industries employing
unskilled labor, where the terms of serv-
ice We're often those of instant dis
IniSsal-'' Another serious difficulty with
American employment was that it was
spasmodic. Complaints from employees
were often made the ground for dis
miSSal
The present antagonisrn of employers
and unions was the fault of both par
ties. but on the whole the former were
more to blame because their situation
was more comfortable and their educa-
ton superior. The industrial community
was under many obligations to unions
for the evils they have mitigated, such
as poor sanitary conditions in factories.
an unreasonable number of hours of
work, child labor and the company
store.
The oIigarchy of capital had combined
effectively, and the corresponding COM
binat1on of laboring men was a whole
some 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 subversive Of fundamental
American doctrines of liberty One of
these evils was the limit placed on the
number of apprentices, whereas in the
learned professions every encourage
ment was given to the training of
novices.
Other evils were the Limitation of out
put, which destroys the self-respect of
the efficient workman, and the uniform
wage, Which has cruel reaction on the
less capable Workmen, because, with a
uniform wage, he loses his job a every
slack of business, whereas, if he was
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 fea-
ture of every strike in industries en-
ploying unskilled labor. The unskilled
laborer on strike had no other weapon
unless it were the boycott, which was a
cruel, cowardly interference with the
rights of all the people. President Eliot
declared that he saw grounds for hoping
that the rela ton of capital and labor
would be improved in spite of their
nrpSQnf pllicror1f or-+lx
by frank discussion of abuses, partly by
prearranged ARA ngements for concilia-
ton or for arbitration. and partly by
the service which labor unions would