The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1916-10-19
increase OF Wages an
Hours Says Roosevelt


without giving the public it's day in court. / hope
the demands Of the were gust, and would
have been proved SO to be, if investigated before
a competent body. But | explicitly protest against
any action by the Government when no investiga-
ton has been held to whether the claims are
or are not just, and when they granted
through fear and not as matter of right.
Remember it is the public that in the end will
pay. You do not have to take my assertion for
this. Take the assertion Of Mr.. Wilson's master
in this matter. The Union leaders, through their
Chairman, MIR. Garretson, announced that they
would steadily refuse to arbitrate and that in their
action they were supported by the President Of
the United States" They stated their case in
nutshell as follows: in times like this, men
go back to primal instfnct,-to the day Of the
caveman with his half-gnawed bone, snarling at
the over caveman who wanted to take his bone
away. We leaders fighting for men. The
railroads fighting for their stockholders;
and the shippers for themselves. And the public
will pay Mr. Graretson is right,-the public
will pay. And it will pay without having had the
chance to know whether it ought or ought not to
pay. Mr.. Wilson betrayed the public when he
refused to insist that the contest should be de-
cided on principles Of justice' and when he per-
mitted it to be decided in Difference to greed and
fear MI. Wilson announced that it "futile''
to stand firmly against these improper demands.
1t would not have been futile if a Democrat Of the
stamp of Andrew Jackson Grover Cleveland had
been President. The futty inhered solely in Mr..
Wilson himself. If President Wilson had stood
by the honor and the interests Of the United
States in this matter; if he had insisted upon
full invest: cation before action; if he had in
sisted upon arbitration and had announced that
if there any attempt to tie up the traffic Of
the United States he would the entire power
of the United States to keep the arteries Of traffic
Open l would have applauded him and supported
him. But to take such action needed courage.
1t needed disinterestedness. 1t necessary that
the man taking it should put duty to the nation
first ard political and personal consideration last.
What President Wilson did was to permit the
overriding Of Justice by appeals to brute force
He says that it would have been futile" to
show courage and stand up for the right. From
the standpoint of the nation, the worst type OF
futility in President is to fail to stand up for
the right. President Wilson felt it futile to
oppose these men, exactly as President Buchanan,
his spiritual forbear, felt in 1850, that it was
futile to oppose secesso on. That type Of futility
gives the real measure of the who practices
it. What Buchanan considered futile Lincoln
made heroic.
I champion Mr. Hughes as against Mr. Wilson
because in every such crisis Mr. wilson, by his
public acts, has shown that he VIII yield to fear,
that he will not yield to justice; whereas the
public acts of Mr.. Hughes have proved him to be
incapable Of yielding in such crisis to any threat
whether made by politicians, corporations labor
leaders.
I have always stood for the rights of labor
You miners before me know that. | stood for
you, and | incurred the hostility Of the greatest
financial powers Of the land by doing, and |
have felt that hostility in public life ever since
knew that my course was right. l stood by you
because I believed you right. If I had
been the type of man who was willing to stand by
you when you were wrong, | would never have
dared to stand by you when you right
against such opposition at that time l encoun-
tered. l nave stood for shorter GOurs Of labor. l
have stood for better wage for the labOrer for
better housing conditiOns for giving the laboring
wageworker better living. conditions and better
and safer working conditions. I have stood to
give him and his wife and children the chance to
make Of themselves all that American citizens
should make of themselves. | have stood, and
always shall stand, for everything in the interest
of he I al
ways stood, and always viii stand, against yield
ing anything through fear or because Of threats.
l believe in the great principle of arbitration.
believe in invoking the action Of the government
q holm 10 h,t leo Lcli L., I'M W.