The public ledger. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1913-1968, 1916-10-21

dent. The futility inferred solely in Mr..
| Wilson himself. II President Wilson had
stood by the honor and the interests Of
the United States in this matter; IL he
had insisted upon a full investigation be.
fore action; IL he had insisted upon arbi.
| tration and had announced that IL there
was any attempt to tie up the traffic Of
the United States he would use the entire
power Of the United States to keep the ar.
| teries Of traffic open, | would have ap-
plauded him and supported him. But, to
take such action needed courage. II need.
ed -disinterestedness. II was necessary that
the man taking IL should put duty TO
the nation first and political and personal
considerations last. What President vii.
son did was to permit the overriding of
justice by appeals to brute force.
He says that IL would have been "fu.
tile" to show courage and stand up for
the right. From the standpoint Of the ma.
ton, the worst type of futility in a Presi.
dent is to fail to stand up for the right
President Wilson felt IL was futile to op-
pose these men, exactly as President Blu
chanan, his spiritual forbear, felt in 1880,
that It was futile, to oppose secession. That
| type OF futility gives the real measure Of
| the man who practices il. What Blu.
chanan considered futile Lincoln made
heroic
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 in.
capable of yielding in such a crisis to any
threat, whether made by politicians, cor.
| porations OF labor leaders.
| have always stood for the rights Of
labor You miners before me know that
| stood for you, and incurred the host
| ity of the greatest financial powers Of the
land 10y so doing, and | have felt that hos
tility in public life ever since. But ] did
not care. because ! knew that my course
was right stood by you because ! be
lieved you were right. II 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 were
right. against such opposition as at that
time ! encountered have stood for short
err hours of labor. have stood for bet.
ter wage for the aborer, for better housing
conditions; for giving the aboring wage.
worker better living conditions and better
anu 0dlNl N'tNlhH NbHNlllOns. ! nave btOOu
to give him and his wife and children the
chance to make of themselves all that
American citizens should make of them.
selves | have stood. and always shall
stand. for everything in the interest of
justice for the laboring man But ! have
always stood. and always shall stand.
against yielding anything through fear or
because of threats | believe in the great
ptipoiy.la of oVl,ttrottDn I kal,ayo -, -,
voling the action of the government to
help labor; but | also believe to invoke
such action will in the end be ruinous to
labor, as well as to the country, il il il
not exercised with wisdom and fearless.
ness and the spirit of exact justice to all
the parties concerned. II these questions
are not settled right, then some time they
will have to be unsettled and infinite trou.
BILE is thereby laid up for us in the future
The only way We can settle them right il
by deliberation. after all the facts have
been put before a dslnterested and com.
petent body, and the judgment of that
body obtained thereon. This is the course
that even now ought to be pursued as re-
CARDS the Adamson bill. Its operation has
been deferred until after Congress assem-
hles. Congress should hold it up until a
proper commission shall investigate the en-.
lire subject; and then the Adamson bill
should be enacted either unchanged, or !
with whatever changes and additions
the report of such dispassionate COM
mission may show to be desirable and
necessary.
Labor leaders who are shortsighted may
at the moment get from a man in public
Office who is not actuated by justice, more
hon, h. Z. I'll
tice. But the laboring people as a whole
cannot afford to accept such gains. II un-
just legislation is given them for improper
reasons then unjust legislation against
them may be enacted for improper reasons
More than any other people in the country
the wage workers should insist on Just and
fair action. There is grave reason to be-
lieve that in the course President Wilson
has followed he did violence to his own
real convictions. Until he became a can
didate for office, he was a bitter, ungen-
erous and often unjust critic of labor
unions. have before me speeches and
letters of his made and written in 1905,
1907 and 1909, in which Mr. Wilson says
among other things that labor unions
drag the highest man down to the level
Of the lowest" and in speaking of the cap
italstic class, he says that there is an
other equally formidable enemy and IL is
that class formed by the labor leaders Of |
this country" and again 81 am a fierce |
partisan of the open shop" and again ''The |
usual standard of the employee in our day |
is to give as little as he can for his wages. |
Labor is standardized by trade unions and |
this is the standard to which it Is made |
to conform. | need not point out how |
economically disastrous such regulation of |
labor is. Our economic supremacy may be |
lost because the country grows more and |
more full of Improbable servants" These |
we're the utterances of Mr.. Wilson when |
he was president Of a university and had |
neither fear of nor desire to profit by the |
labor vote. In Mr.. Wilson's History Of |
the American People" he explicitly stated
that the Chinese ought not TO be excluded |
from this country because II is better TO |
have them here than II is to have the i'm
migrants we now get from Europe. His
words we're: "The Chinese are more to be
desired as workmen than most OF the
coarse crew that come crowding in every
where at the Eastern ports" Now he
turns round and says: "Our gates must be
kept open" to those whom be thus denomi.
mated coarse crew" Since he went into
politics he has again and again, necessarily
and continuously. reversed himself on what
he had professed to he his deepest convic-
lions prior 10 entering politics, and in
each case the announced change OF con
vietion agreed with what at the moment
seemed to be his political interests
II Il is alleged that President Wilson
h. haau aafuataI nult hu ..rtu....I. =. |