Los Angeles herald., 1910-12-06
THE LONG, BLIND FIGHT
tPaciflc outlook.)


labor and those who finance labor's
employment.
This fight has been going on, in
organized and semi-organized shape,
for three-quarters of century. 1t has
been acute for over half a century.
There is not in the conflict, as 1t pro-
crosses today in this country, one
single suggestion OF definite and Anal
solution. AS each battle closes, We
may count the dead and wounded and
the heart broken, but we can point
to no moral gain of territory, no ISSUE
settled, not even a permanent strategic
position won on either side. A thou-
sand years of such warning, and but
for the awful tale of ruin and sor-
row. 1t is all as though 1t had never
been.
The most terrible war of modern
times was the Thirty Years War OF
Germany. 1t began in religious dit-
ferences, but as it rolled along 1T
picked up all the family rows and all
ancient feuds and grievances with
which the collection of petty baronies
and principalities that made up the :
German empire was infested. The re-
gion had long seethed with hatreds'
ambitions, aggressions, claims and
counter claims, and the war gave to
all these the oportunity of vivid phys
ical expression. But years of war are
long years, and presently there came
a time when quarrels had been fought
to a finish, when ambitions palied,
when claims counted for little, and
when even religious controversy lost
much Of the zest with which the devil
had favored it-and so a general de-
mand went up that the war should
cease Did it then cease? Not at all;
it was really only at its beginning.
Civilization looked on at the terrible
spectacle of a war that was begotten
of war, an automatic conflict that per-
sisted in spite of itself, monster
stinging itself in agony and praying
for a death that would not come. The
people had grown into the war habit,
and they fought on year after year.
and decade after decade, blindly, with
out purpose and without hope. No
BODY knew any more how the war be-
gan; no one believed it would ever end.
When all the fighting men were slain,
when the population was reduced to
starving handful, when all the cities
had been sacked and resacked until
they were gaping ruins, when the last
dollar was spent, and the last jewel
was pawned, fighting ceased and the
war was over
The endless war of the strikes begins
to resemble the secondary stages of
the German Thirty Years War. No
body wishes to fight, nothing is to be
gained in lighting, there is no real
cause of war, and there is no ultimate
purpose in view. This particular
skirmish may be on an increase of
wages, but that does not settle the
question of pay at all, and the Whole
miserable business may be upon us
again in a month or two. Or 1t may
be matter of hours, or closed shop,
or recognition of the union, or method
of hiring and discharge, or any one of
dozen different issues. No conflict
ever really settles anything, and there
is no limit to the amount of fighting
possible. None of the combatants look
forward to a time when the war will
cease, and rational methods prevail.
They do not ask it, nor wish it. The
general public, which is by far the
worst sufferer, seems to have become
calloused, Indifferent and utterly pes
simistic. This is not the attitude of
the American people with respect to
other questions they are called upon
to face.
In the meantime, we are developing
the elements that go to make per-
manency in warfare; mercenaries and
professional soldiers on both sides,
strike makers and strike breakers,
detectives and thugs, spies and sneaks,
merchants and newspapers and pol
ticians that try to play both ends of
the controversy, bulldozers, boycotters,
fake injunctions and fake grievances.
There are ghouls, who make money
out of these disturbances, and who
foment them-ambitious labor leaders
on the one side, and on the other news
papers that get rich by fawning on
the big employers and by stimulating
class hatreds from above downwards.
A sorrowful situation, and infinitely
strange withal! Strange that we should
endure all this strife and look upon
the problem as one of infinite compli-
cation to which no solution Is possible,
when it is in reality so simple and
the remedy so easily within reach.
From time to time the public utters
the words that make UP the answer to
all this--"compulsory arbitration"-but
when a chorus of protest rises from
both sides of the fight, the public re-
Iapses into silence again and proceeds
on it's sorrowful way. Perhaps, we
say, when they have striVen against
each other until both sides have suf-
fered great injury, then they will sub
nit But, let us remember, not they
but we, the general public, are the
chief losers. The cost of industrial
warfare is in the long run charged
back to the consumer. 1T is a gigantic
economic waste that must be paid by
somebody. Moreover, as our industries
coalesce and grow larger, the waves
of disturbance run higher and farther
and create more terrible havoc. Time
and again we have been drawn to the
edge of the chasm and looked over.
We have seen starvation, anarchy
panic or pestilence waiting at the end
of some strike which chance has
brought to a close just at the last mo-
ment of respite.
1t is not from the armies in conflict
that the terms Of peace will come, but
from the public at large which has so
long stood by watching, sorrowing and
suffering. We have the machinery for
the making of laws and for their exc
ol1tiOn and we have oot1rfa vbara