Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1902-11-27
ELLIO1TS VIEWS
ON LABOR
Work Of Unions Must be Counted Among
the Efforts to Make Mankind
Happy.
EN- UMERATES HUMANE CONDITIONS
He BlameS Employers Principally for Their
Absence. Condemns Certain
Features.

Cambridge, Mass, Nov.23-In an ad
dress at private meeting of the Colonia
Club of this city, President Eliot of Har
ward, made comprehensive statement o
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 satisfy.
ing and happier and that their strength
lay in their belief in this work as their mis-
sion. He then enumerated the conditions,
which he designated as humane conditions
of mployement-those to which laborng
men may rightly aspire.
Fret was rising wage based on in.
creased experience, attainments and age,
second, steady employment after ade-
quate probation, third, the opportunity
for the working man to establish a per-
manant home; fourth, conditions which
enable him to give his employer
generous service and to take pride in it,;
fifth, the right to pension on disability,
which gives throughout life relief from
one great anxiety, and that public con-
sideration, which goes with steady job
and selfrespecting, though humble or
unobserved career.
These five conditions of humane en-
ployment, President Eliot said, were
realized to-day in Harvard University.
Plainly they were not realized in the great
American industries employing unskiled
labor, where the terms Of service were of.
ten those of instant dismissal. Another
serious difficulty with American employ
ment was that it was spasmodic. Com.
plants from employees were often made
the ground for dismissal
EMPLOYERS MORE TO BLAME.
The present antagouism of employers
and the 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 education
superior. The industrial community was
under many obligations to unions for the
evils they have mitigated, such as poor
sanitary conditions in factories, an un-
reasonable number of hours work, child
labor and the company store.
The oligarchy of capital had combined
effectively and the corresponding combi'
Iation of laboring men was wholesome
check upon that olgarchy. There was no
question that the labor union had come to
stay.
On the other hand, its cause was injured
by certain evils which were 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 encouragement
was given to the training of novices. Other
evils were the limitation of output which
destroys the seli-respect of The efficient
workman, and the uniform wage, which
has cruel reaction on the less capable
workmen, because with uniform wage he
loses bis job at every slack in business,
whereas if be were paid according to his
earning capacity bis employer could afford
to keep him the year around. A fourth
evil was the violence which was an newt
able feature in every strike in industries
employing unskilled labor. The unskiled
laborer on strike had no other weapon un-
less it were the boycott, which was cruel,
cowardly interference with the rights of all
the people.
President Eliot declared that he saw
grounds for hoping that the relations of
capital and labor would be improved, in
spite of their present unintelligent an
tagonism, partly by frank public discussion
of abuses, partly by prearranged agree
ments for concilation or arbitration, and
partly by the service which labor unions
would render to capital through their con-
stant command of the labor resources Of
which capital comes in need.