Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1916-11-04

cerned, itself to take action; but it
was its duty first of all to obtain full
knowledge of the facts
When was president 1 refused to
admit that the l. & N had a moral
right arbitrarily to reduce wages un-
less there was full Investigation of all
the facts by the government In ex
actly the same fashion 1 now refuse to
admit the moral right of the brother
hoods in the Adamson case to insist
that there should be a big increase in
wages without any investigation OF
the complicated equities of the case
and, of course arbitration was the one
way of making such Investigations eff.
fective, and then, if there was need,
the legislative power could be invoked
by whatever method necessary to make
the arbitration effective
L hope the demands of the men
were just. 1 am not passing Judgment
on them in any way. 1 have no knowl-
edge that will enable me to say wheth-
er or not it was right that the wages
should be raised without increasing
the rates, or how such a wage raise
will affect the shippers. the stockhold-
ers, or the general public. There could
be no worse precedent established than
character being demanded of congress
without investigation Immediately be
fore a given day, under threat of dis
aster to the nation. Congress was re
quired to pass the law before Saturday
closed, and the president was not al.
lowed to wait until Monday, but was
required to sign it on Sunday, in order
to avert widespread disaster.
CSuSUreS Wilson
1t was the president of United
States who stood over congress and
demanded that the government of all
the people should pass a law for the
economical advantage of one-half of
one percent of the people. without
giving the rest of the people their
day in court
''It was the president who terror
lied congress, who surrendered his
obligation and duty as the president
of all the people in order to become
the partisan for the economical ad-
vantage of a small group of the peo-
pie, and who did this because he was
seeking votes in a national political
campaign.
For the first time in the history
of this country, the president of all
the people took an Industrial con-
troversy from the economical field
and placed it in the political field for
personal advantage in the campaign.
l do not censure the individual con-
gressmen who acted under the pres
sure of the chief magistrate of the
United States, who came before them
alleging a great national crisis which
threatened the economical and in
dustrial life of the country and the
cities, and who demanded of congress
this law, under the pretense that it
was justifiab1e social welfare law. <
sit is he, and not any leader of
the brotherhoods, who is primarily to
blame. for the brotherhoods acted as
they did only under the direct incite-
ment of the president.
'1n other words, the law was
passed under duress and by threat,
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.
t'Now let me give you a homely
illustration. Down at Oyster Bay,
where 1 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 I was not to either examine the
bill or examine the work, but just to
pay the total demanded at once, I
would tell him I would not do it and
I would tell him emphatically. 1
would tell him his bill. might be all
right and that hoped it was all right,
but that 1 intended to know all the
facts before 1 paid it.
Public Will Pay
We'll, that is exactly what I 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. It may be the stock
holders. it may be the shippers. il
may be the general public Now it
may be right that either the shippers.
~