The Irish standard., 1914-12-05
THE SCHOOL OF TRADE UNIONS,
THE HIGHER EDUCATION
FOR THE WORkINGMAN.
Honorable William 3. Wilson, Score
tary of Labor of the United
States, a Graduate of
This University.

record of Honorable William B. Will
son, graduate of the school of trade
unionism.
Indeed, it was not his family con-
nections, or education, nor his wealth
and gradual rise in government en-
ploy that made statesman out of the
trade-unionist, but merely the expe-
rience gained in the weekly and
monthly meetings of his union at the
annual conventions of his trade, and
later his attendance at the many con-
ventions of the American Federation
of Labor. 1t was there in the labor
movement, and later in Congress, that
he voiced the hopes and views, and
gave expression to the wrongs inflict-
ed upon labor, and worked and accom-
plished much for labor and for the
people generally. 1t is of much inter-
est to trade unionists, and particularly
to all workingmen that his address to
the delegates of the American Fedora
ton of Labor at Philadelphia is studied
by all, Mr.. Wilson said in part:
1--WE have taken the ground, and
we think justly, that employers and
employees have a mutual interest in
securing the largest possible produc-
tion with given amount of labor; the
larger the amount that is produced, the
larger the amount that is available for
distribution; that their interests only
diverge when it comes to determine
ton of the share that should go to
each and the methods under which
the material should be produced. As
their interests only diverge at those
points, it is the proper thing for en-
ployers and employees alike to sit
down around the council table and
work out the problems they have to
deal with on as nearly correct
mathematical basis as possible.
"Working from that theory of the
mutual interests that each has in pro-
duction, we have proceeded to the con-
sideration of these problems. And
again, we have been criticised as being
partisans, upon the theory that the De-
partment of Labor in acting as medi-
ator performs judicial functions. Now,
the Department of Labor, in acting as
a mediator, does not perform any judi
cial functions; what it performs are
diplomatic functions, and there is no
more reason that the Department of
Labor should be debarred from ham
ding trade disputes upon diplomatic
basis because it is interested in the
welfare of the workers, than that the
Department of State should be de-
barred from handling international
disputes because of the fact that it is
part of the Federal Government of
the United States.
What we need, in handling trade
disputes, and what we have attempted
to select in handling trade disputes, is
men who have experience and who
are level-headed and understand the
technicalities of the subject-matter
they are to deal with. You cannot
take man who has had no expe-
rience, you cannot take man who
knows nothing about a trade, no mat
ter how big he is, and inject him into
the negotiations for the settlement of
trade dispute and expect to get bene-
fetal results from his injection into it.
You must take men who have had
practical experience.
"And so we have gone on with this
line of work, and, as have said, in
nearly every instance we have been
successful. And those instances
where we have been unsuccessful
have been principally due to that class
of employers, extremists, class be-
coming smaller and smaller as the
years go by, who look upon their en-
ployes as simply part of the ma.
chinery Of their establishments, to be
treated in exactly the same way as
they would treat other machines, with
this difference: that the inanimate ma
chine in their shop is SO constructed
and so standardized that they can cal.
culate with almost mathematical accu.
racy what the working strain and what
the breaking strain of the machine is;
and they know if they crowd the ma.
chine up to the breaking strain, and 1t
does break, it will cost them some.
thing to replace the machine. Not so
with the human being that is employed
by them, and that they look upon as
machine. He is not standardized, he
Is not uniform in his physical and
mental equipment; there has been NO
method by which you can calculate
the breaking strain or the working
strain of a human being. Even the
worker himself does not know what
his strain is, and if you crowd that
human machine up to the breaking
strain, and it does break, then it costs
the employer nothing to replace it.
1--WE have held throughout that the
human being is an entirely different
thing from the machine, and should be
treated entirely different from the
manner IN whfot 1,o,, <vooA %ho ,no