The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1912-02-17
URGES FORMATION OF
LABOR COMMISSION
President Taft in Special Message
Says State Should Protect
Working Men.
SEES PUBLIC DISASTER IN
WORKNGMENS' UNREST
Would Have Commission Gather
Data AS to Country's Present
Industrial Conditions.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15.-On Feb.
2, President Taft transmitted to con-
gress a special message covering num-
erous subjects.
Among the recommendations in
Glued in the message was one for the
appointment of a commission on in
dustrial relations. The following is
the message.
The extraordinary growth of in
dustry in the past two decades and its
revolutionary changes have raised
new and vital questions as to the
relations between employers and wage
earners which have become matters of
pressing public concern.
Any interruption to the normal and
peaceful relations between employer
and wage Garner involves public dis
comfort and in many cases. public
disaster. Such Interruptions become,
therefore, quite as much matter Of
public concern as restraint of trade
or monopoly.
Industrial relations concern the
public for a double reason. We are
directly Interested in the main
tenance of peaceful and stable in
dustrial conditions for the sake of
our comfort and well-being; but So
ciety is equally interested, in its
sovereign civic capacity, in seeing
that our institutions are effectively
maintaining justice and fair dealing
between any classes Of citizens whose
economic interests may seem to clash
Numerous special Investigations, Of
tlcial and unofficial, have revealed
conditions in more than one industry
which have Immediately been recog-
nized on all sides as entirely out OF
harmony with accepted American
standards.
1t is probable that to a great ex-
tent the remedies for these conditions
SO far as the remedies involve legis-
lation, lie in the field of state action
but such comprehensive inquiry as
is necessary to furnish a basis for in
telligent action must be undertaken on
national initiative and must be ma
ton wide in it's scope.
One legitimate object Of such an
official investigation and report is tC
enlighten and inform public opinion
which itself will often induce or COM
pei the reform of unjust conditions
or the abatement of unreasonable de-
mands.
There is already available much in
formation on certain aspects of the
subject in the reports of the federal
and state bureaus of labor and in
other official and unofficial publica-
tions.
One essential part of the proposed
inquiry would naturally be to es-
semble, digest and interpret this in.
formation so far as it bears upon GU,
| present industrial condition.
In addition to this, the commission
should inquire into the general con.
ditions of labor in our principal in.
dustries, into the existing relation.
between employers and employees ir
those industries, into the variou:
methods which have been tried FOL
| maintaining mutually satisfactory re-
lations between employees and EN-.
ployers and for avoiding or adjusting
trade disputes, and into the scope
methods and resources of federal anc
state bureaus of labor and the meth.
DDS by which they might more AIDE.
| quately meet the responsibilities:
| which, through the work of the com
! mission above recommended, would
be more clearly brought to light anC
Defined"