Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1910-09-07
ROOSEVELT ON
 LABOR UNIONS Approves System of "Col- lective Bargaining"
 For Wages. FAVORS 8-HOUR DAY
Says That Strikes are Sometimes
 Necessary, But Only as q Last Resort.

In his address at Fargo, North Dakota, Monday, Col. Roosevelt said:
 Among the blanks in the platform Of the American Federation of Labor there are some to which I very strongly subscribe. They are:
 T. Free schools, free textbooks and compulsory education.
 .'2. A workday of not more than eight hours.
 a. Release from employment one day in seven.
 A. The abolition of the sweatshop system.
 ''5. Sanitary inspection of factory, workshop, mine and home.
 "6. Liability of employers for in Jury to body or loss of life. q regard the demand in this form as made quate. What we need is an automa- tically fixed compens sation for all in juries received by the employe in the course of his duty, this being in- definitely better for the employe and more just to the employer. The only sufferers will be lawyers of that un- desirable class which exists chiefly by carrying on lawsuits of this na- ture.)
 "The passage and enforcement of rigid anti-child labor laws which will cover every portion of this country and similar laws limiting women's s labor should be enacted
 "S. Suitable and plentiful play grounds for children in all the cities.
 Our ideal should be a rate of wages sufficiently high to enable workmen to live in manner com fortable to American ideals and standards, to educate their children and to provide for sickness and old age; the abolition of child labor safety device legislation to prevent industrial accidents; and automatic compensation for lossss caused by these industrial accidents
 Must Use Their Own Efforts.
 Tt is true of wage-worke Of all other citizens, that most of their progress must depend upon their own initiative and their own efforts. New ertheless, there are three different factors in this progress. There is, individual qualities must determine. This is the most important of all, for nothing can supply the place of indi- yidual capacity. Yet there are two other factors also of prime import ance namely, what can be done by the wageworker in cooperation with one another and what can be done by goyernment-that is, by the in- strument through which all the peo- pie work collectively?
 Wages and other most important conditions of employment must re- main largely outside of government control; must be left for adjustment by free contract between employers and wage-earners, subject to legisla- ton which will prevent conditions which compel man or woman to accept wages representing less than will insure decent living. But to attempt to leave this merely to ind- vidual action means the absolute de- struction of individualism; for where the individual is so weak that he, per- force. has to accept whatever a strongly organized body chooses to give him, his individual liberty be- comes a mere sham and mocker.
 It is indispensably necessary, in order to preserve to the largest de- gree our system of individualism, that there should be effective and or ganized collective action. The wage earners must act jointly, through the process of collective bargaining in great industrial enterprises. Only thus can they be put upon plane of economic equality with their corpor- ate employers. Only thus is freedom