Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1916-11-03
was justifiable social welfare law.


1T is he, and not any leader of
the brotherhoods, who is primarily to
blame, for the brotherhoods acted aa
they did only under the direct incite-
ment of the president.
"In other words, the law was
and the president yielded, with tame
actly as he had yielded before to out
submission to the threat, yielding ex-
actly as he had yielded before to out
side threats in international matters.
81 hold that such yielding was an
act not merely of timidity, but grave
abandonment of duty.
''Now let me give you homely
illustration. Down at Oyster Bay,
where l live, / have one neighbor, a
carpenter, and one plumber. Every
now and then they both do things
for me in the house. Then they send
in their bills. We of the household
examine the bills and the work, and
if we don't understand some of the
items on the bills, or are not satisfied
with some of the work we have to
have an explanation, but sooner or
later we always pay the bills, because
my neighbors are straight men. But
if one of them brought in his bill and
then held gun to my head and said
that l was not to either examine the
bill or examine the work, but just to
pay the total demanded at once, /
would tell him I would not do it and
/ would tell him emphatically. I
would tell him his bill might be all
right and that hoped it was all right,
but that I intended to know all the
facts before / paid it.
Public Will Pay
"Well, that is exactly what / want
to know now The public will have
to pay this bill; the increase in wages
won't come out of nothing. Some
body will pay it, 1t may be the stock
holders, it may be the shippers, it
may be the general public. Now it
may be right that either the shippers,
the stockholders or the general pub
bile shall pay; but, it may be wrong.
I hope it is right and l hope the right
people pay, but it is the duty of this
government not to hope to know what
the facts are before it submits to the
passage of any legislation.
isn't that clear and straight? l
don't see how it can be made any
clearer and straighter. I have seen
a protest On behalf Of the farmers
against thisebill, passed by the Farm
ers' Union. This protest says the
farmers favor an eight-hOur day for
labor whenever it can be put into eff
feet without increasing the burdens
of the producers or consumers beyond
the benefits that they receive. 1t
was pointed out that the farmer now
works about twelve hours day and
that he wants to be sure he does not
have to pay fer increasing the wages
of the trainmen through an increase
of freight rates or in the price of
the articles he buys, unless the
equities of the situation demand it.
''The Farmers Union Demands an
Investigation to find out whether the
hours Of work and the compensation
received By the railroad men compare
unfavcrably with that of the farmer;
whether the farmer is financially able
to withstand his proportion of the
burden Gf the increase. In fact, the
farmers want to know the facts be-
fore sanctioning a law which may
gravely compromise their interests.
II wish to see wages everywhere
raise is compatible with justice to
all of the parties vitality concerned.
wish to see the eight-hour day as
the ideal toward which we should
arrive, but many considerations must
enter into our decision as to how this
ideal is to be achieved. 1t is both
simple and just'to give an eight-hour
day in many branches of industries
where there is heavy work, like min
ing, for instance, or in continuous
industries, or where the work is ex-
hausting and monotonous. There
are other kinds of labor where the
work is varied and not exhausting, or
where the excessive work on certain
days is followed by other days Of
complete or comparative rest. Thirty
years ago, for instance, | worked in
the cow country, and 1 sometimes
was among those who came in on
stock trains, either here in Chicago
or to Minneapolis.
Sometimes for hours we had
nothing to do; and sometimes we
had to work all day or all night. We
had come off the roundup, where we
usually had to work twelve to sixteen
hours at a stretch and where once
I worked a forty-one hour stretch
without sleep or any more rest than
necessary and eating very hur-
ried meals; but there were other
times when for days we did little
or nothing. Now it would be abso-
lutely absurd to try to apply an
eight-hour day to us under those con-
lditions We must strive to achieve
justice; but we must do it by the ex-
hibitiOn of common sense"