Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-09-30
Stop Watch Statesmanship.

Golfers Weekly does a distinct service to
the campaign of education by collecting and
setting forth expressions Of public regard on the
labor question rejecting the inner sentiments OF
Woodrow Wilson when he was not seeking votes
as contrasted with his vote getting words:
Extract from baccalaureate sermon Of
June IS, 1909, by Prof Woodrow Wilson:
"You know what the usual standard Of the
employee is in our day. 1t is to give as little
as he may for his wages. Labor is standard
lied by the trade uniGn and this is the standard
to which it is meant to conform. No one is
suffered to do more than the average work.
man can do. In some trades and handicrafts
no one is suffered to do more than the least
sklfu OF his fellows can do within the hours
allotted to days labor, and no one can work
out OF hours at all or volunteer anything be-
yond the minimum
II need not point out how economically dis
astrous such regulation Of labor is. The labor
Of America is rapidly becoming Improbable
under>its present regulation by those who have
determined to reduce it to a minimum. Our
economic supremacy may be lost, because the
country grows more and more full of unproft-
able servants go
Extract from letter Of Woodrow Wilson,
dated January IL, 1909, in reply to an invitation
to speak at banquet Of anti-strike and anti
boycott advocates: g.. s ~
~ am fierce partisan Of the open shop and
OF everything that makes for individual liberty,
and ! should like to contribute anything that
it might be possible for me to contribute to
the Qualification Of thinking and the formation
OF right purposes in matters of this kind
At dinner in the Waldorf-Astoria on
March is, 1907, Dr. Woodrow Wilson spoke
as follows:
I'VE speak too exclusively OF the capitalistic
class. There is another as formidable an enemy
to equality and freedom OF opportunity as it is,
and that is the class formed by the labor or
CARNATIONS and leaders Of the country"
Golfers is careful to explain that these SEN
tments Of Mr.. Wilson are not ours. They are op-
posed to the views held by US and practiced by
Golfers for more than thirty-three years. We
reprint them here because they have an impor-
tant bearing on the question whether the demo-
cratic administration in what it did during the
last week in August. was actuated by sincerity
Of lifelong conviction.
The Bee is able to add to this interesting
compendium still another, which, to our mind
is even more directly in point than the others.
Woodrow Wilson, while president OF Princeton
was requested by Prof. Frank Parsons
Of the Bureau of Economic Research, in letter
under date Of September, 1905, to join with others
in signing this declaration:
/. We favor the eight-hour day.
2. Believing that the eght-hour day means
longer and richer life, fAirer diffusion of
wealth and power, better citizenship and
higher civilization through leisure for educa-
tion recreation, civic and social life, we well
come each step in the progress of the eight
hour movement and earnestly hope for the
success Of the typographical u..ions in their
efforts to secure the eisht-hour day.
Z Woodrow Wilson refused to sign either Of
the propositions, saying:
1T seems to me that nothing of this sort
can be decided thus in the abstract and that no
valuable conclusion can be arrived at except
by real discussion Of specific cases"
Here we have what Woodrow Wilson then
really thought OF the eight-hour day-what he
probably now thinks about It, when permitted
to think free from the threats of labor leaders
and unbiased by the allurement Of labor votes.