Jamestown weekly alert. [volume] (Jamestown, Stutsman County, D.T. [N.D.]) 1882-1925, 1916-08-24
WILSON'S VIEWS
ON UNION LABOR
President Wilson's Position
Toward Unionism.

Washington, Aug 22.-The fol-
lowing statement, especially timely,
in view Of President Wilson's appar-
ent endeavor to draw the union la
bor vote from the present strike
crisis, has been prepared by the Re-
publican Publicity Association and
given out through its president. Hon.
Jonathan Bourne, Jr., at its Wash
ington headquarters:
justices of the United States Su-
preme Court are not charged with
the duty of molding public opinion.
According to press reports, President
Samuel Gompers Of the American
Federation of Labor proposes to at
tack the record of Candidate Charles
Evans Hughes toward labor, and to
plead the cause of President Wood
row Wilson in the coming campaign.
President Gompers will offer as evil
dence in support of his attack the
judicial attitude of Mr. Hughes in
the Danbury Hatters' case. Regard
less of Mr.. Hughes holding in that
case, and it is generally admitted
that it was not subversive of the
just rights of labor, it should be
borne in mind by every laboring man
in this country that Mr.. Hughes,
while Associate Justice of the United
States Supreme Court, was perform
ing his sworn duties in interpreting
Federal statutes as presented before
his Court. For the passage of those
statutes he was in no wise respon-
sible. 1t was his sole function to
determine their legal application to
the cases at bar to the best of his
ability. TO have shown favoritism
to either side would have been a
cowardly and criminal violation of
his oath of Office. The attitude Of
Mr.. Hughes while on the Federal
bench. as of all members of that
august tribunal, was, and should
be-
The cold neutrality of an impair
tial judge"
Amy deviation from that position
would subject the highest court in
the land, and rightly SO, to the sus-
picion of all classes and sections of
the country. Failure on the part of
our Supreme Court Judges to inter-
pret statutory legislation without
fear or favor would render that bull
| wark of our constitutional liberties
a hothouse for the propragtion of
class control and destroy our Repub-
lican form of government. For this
reason President Gompers' attack on
Mr.. Hughes for his holding in the
Danbury Hatters' case will make no
appeal to the intelligent laboring
man, union or nOn-union.
ION the other hand, we have as a
| matter of record, the baccalaureate
sermon of Woodrow Wilson, deliver
ed to the students of Princeton Uni
versity, June IA, 1909. At that time
Mr.. Wilson was not candidate for
the Presidency. He had no political
axe to grind He felt at liberty to
speak freely the thoughts that were
in his mind. He was addressing
several hundred young men who
| were going out into the world, and
whose thoughts had been nodded by
Professor Wilson in the class room.
Everyone of those young men left
his alma mater with these words
ringing in his ears:
"'You know what the usual stan
dard of the employee is in our day.
1t is to give as little as he may for
| his wages. Labor is standardized by
the trades-unions, and this is the
standard to which it is made to con-
form. No one is suffered to do more
than the average workman can do.
| In some trades and handicrafts no
one is suffered to do more than the
least skillful of his fellows can do
| within the hours allotted to a days
labor. and no one may work out OF
| hours at all or volunteer anything
beyond the minimum. | need not
point out how economically disas-
trous such a regulation of labor is.
It is so Improbable to the employer
that in some trades it will presently
not be worth his while to attempt
anything at all. He had better stop
altogether than operate at an inevit-
able and invariable loss. The labor
of America is rapidly becoming un-
profitable under its present regula-
ton by those who have determined
| to reduce it to minimum. Our
economic supremacy may be lost be-
cause the country grows more and
more full of Improbable servants
Labor will have it's own jury
service to perform in considering the
merits of the two candidates for
the presidency, and this is part of
the evidence against Woodrow Will