Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1915-07-28
MISS TARBELL's CHANGE OF POSITION

/ by Iona / Robinson, in The Public)
Ida TarbelI, that once clever pioneer
/ hunter and exposer of the occult and
sinister methods Of Standard Oil and
other trusts in restraint of all trade
except their own. has won by years of
such work a high degree of popular
confidence. She should have felt her
self under bonds, as it were, TO keep
Gath with her believing public and
to lead them not out of the path Of
justice into devious ways of business
sophistry. But unhappily, later writ
ings Of Miss TarbeII are already arous-
ing serious doubts Of her ability to go
to the bottom of questions she is now
undertaking to solve. Note, for in
stance. in her advocacy of the Taylor
system of industrial efficiency May
Americana her attitude on trade I'M
ions. In this she has undertaken to
bridge over that awful chasm between
the high gods of industrial finance aud
their men" who WELD the tools, and
a1e makes the amateurish mistake (Or
is it on purpose?) of trying to settle
the pr0foundest question in political
economy by a quite irrevelant recon-
mendation in the domain Of morals.
As well try to solve a problem in math- /
ematics with a recipe for cooking,
She proceeds to build this bridge with /
out the slightest foundation Of equity /
and tries to fill up the yawniug abyss !
with mere platitudinous pebbles which /
pass among many business men for /
axioms Of logic. I
When you come down TO the chief /
cause Of industrial war" says Miss F.
Tarbell, ''it is and always has been the
failure to take the workingman heart
lily in on that which concerns him"
Nothing of the sort. The chief cause
of industrial war is an economic. not
a moral question. It is our land ten
ure which permits monopoly Of ma
lures opportunity for work. Monopoly
Of lands agricultural. arboreal and
building sites, urban and
suburban, seaboards, terminals and
waterpoweFs. This creates a master
class in control of all the Jobs, which
they can increase or diminish at will.
This unlimited power breeds oppres-
sion, which in turn provokes resist
ance in some form Of industrial war.
but war in which the antagonists are
never on equal footing.
The monopolist makes war for the
sake of the millions profit he makes
from labor; the greatest good that
trade unions expect by their most
sraFrc sp+o t.
heir masters a large enough fraction
If their earnings to furnish a decent
livelihood. OF course small or unprIv-
legged capital is. without knowing II.
u the same boat with labor when the
andlord holds out of use sites for
stores, mill or factory. waiting for his I
price, but capital can often take If
'ut'' Of labor, while workingmen have {
70 such chance.
Miss Tarbell says: You remember
he Lawrence strike: What caused it?
The failure 10 explain 10 several thou
and men and women working at on
yerage Of not over seven dollars a
week, Why their pay envelopes sud
emily contained less Not at all. What /
q --1'NsA tESS Id y ClCS SEEIkE was the
Urinary conditions that gave the mas
ars power to extort a weeks labor for I
My ST The wonder is that the work
RS had not struck long before. But L
liss Tarbell thinks that il the mas
srs had only explained this cut in a
ages below starvation line all would I
ave been well! d
What is the basis Of the trouble in Z
olorado today?" asks this most K
lmous woman journalist in the h
orld-" 1T is the refusal of body n
men, the mine owners, TO talk over a
18th body Of men who work in the p
lines the ambitions OF the latter. One j
the ambitions OF these miners ia 10 u
e every man a member Of a naion II
ne owners refuse 70 discuss this l.
1int wfth them The men waived
leir point. but the owners still refuse lc
meet them