The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1916-12-09
THE PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

The fourth annual message OF PRESIDENT wilson, al
dressed to congress today, will be noted for its brevity and
the fact tina. it deals almost entirely with one subject. The
customary review of the several departments of the execu-
tive branch of the government, which have hitherto char
acterized the annual messages of the presidents, is absent
entirely, while the subject of labor disputes between the
railroads and their employees is the one topic discussed.
Departmental affairs and Our foreign relations are not
even touched. Other matters are only alluded to when
mentioned at all.
But in discussing the one subject he does discuss the
president takes a stand the people will approve; that is
that the railroads of the country, the arteries OF trade,
shall not be paralyzed and that the concerted action OF
powerful bodies of men shall not be permitted to stop the
industrial processes of the nation at any rate not before
the nation itself shall have had an opportunity to learn
the merits of existing disputes and arbitration shall have
failed. The president would not favor a law which for
babe the individual workman to leave an employment he
no longer desired to continue, and then he adds:
But the proposal that the operation of the rail
ways of the country shall not be stopped or inter
rupted by the concerted action of organized bodies
of men until a public investigation shall have been
instituted which shall make the whole question at
issue plain for the Judgment of the opinion of the
nation is not to propose any such principle: 1t is
based upon the very different principle that the con-
certed action of powerful bodies of men shall not
be permitted to stop the industrial processes of the
nation, at any rate before the nation shall have had
an opportunity to acquaint itself with the merits of
the case as between enploye and employer, time to
form its opinion upon an impartial statement of the
merits, and opportunities to consider all practicable
means of Cancellation or arbitration. I can see
nothing in that proposition but the justifiable safe
guarding by society of the necessary processes of
its very life.
This, it is hoped, will save the principle of arbitra-
ton, in spite of the yielding to threats, on the part of both
the executive and Legislative branches of the govern
ment, that so alarmed the country last August, and in
spite of Mr.. Gompers' recent declaration that the Adam
son law would go into effect January I under the %interpre-
tation the railroad brotherhoods had placed upon it, or
there would be a strike, courts or no courts.
Those who own and operate the railroads had to learn
that the public has rights in relation to public utilities
that are just as sacred as the rights of stockholders. 1t
was a tedious and sometimes a painful lesson. The work
men employed by these public utilities apparently have
the same lesson to learn. Let us hope they will be more
apt as pupils, and that the lesson will be less tedious as
we'll as less painful. The industries of this country are
not going to be paralyzed and the sources of food supply
are not going to be cut off by reason of any disputes be
tween any two groups of men, no matter how powerful
either may believe itself to be.