The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-05-26
KEEPING INDUSTRIAL PEACE
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
BY Frederic j. Haskin. Director
Washington. ID. G.

Washington. d. G.
Washington, D. c., May 26.-No one
Will deny that for some time to come
America can get all the fighting sne
wants made in Germany. 1t Is hlgn-
ly important that we have peacefui
and wholehearted cooperation within
our own boundaries. One of the most
delicate tasks that the nation faces
in the coming months IS tnat OF Keep
tanning friendly relations between
capital and labor.
Labor troubles sap the vitality OF
a fighting nation at its industrial
roots. Yet no nation at war has es-
capped them. England has had strike
after strike, sometimes when the pro-
ducts of the idle factories were cry
ingly needed at the front. She has
just seen the last of a munition- max
ers' strike. and a bus drivers strike
that kept the munition workers from
reaching their jobs. Germany, in
spite of iron clad discipline and the
traditional respect of her people for
authority, has just gotten done with
munition makers strikes that even
the name of Hindenburg could not
put down. There is no reason to be-
lieve that we shall be lucky enough
to escape all labor disturbances, and
much of the machinery for adjusting
them is oiled and ready for business.
serious wartime strike. An agree
ment was reached just in time to
avert a walkout. The incident at
tracted comparatively little attention
considering its Importance, largely be-
cause there was no cessation of work.
The threatened strike of the coal min
ers in the second Pennsylvania dis
trict was settled thru the efforts of
the conciliators of the Department.
of Labor, and the settlement agreed
c being submitted
miners convention for ratification
This strike would have affected 10
counties, taken out u.s. 900 miners, and
if it had continued ten days under
present conditions it would have
been little less than a national calam-
ity.
There are. two official agencies in
the United States for the settlement
of labor disputes. Neither of them,
in the final analysis, has any real
power-power. that is, to enforce a
settlemeht-but both have proven eff
fective. The board of mediation and
Cancellation is empowered to step in
and mediate and conciliate in any la
Dor trouble affecting the interstate
service of the railroads. The board
has jurisdiction of this sort over train
men and telegraphers actually en-
gagged in the operation of trains. The
only official conciliator and mediator
in troubles affecting all the other inn
mensely important factories and in
dustries of the nation is the depart
ment of labor. The department has
quite a remarkable record for settling
disputes between labor and capital,
altho it has no power whatever to
force a settlement, and can only use
it's offices to bring about a better I'M
derstanding.
The officials of the department look
forward to doing a brisk business in
the Cancellation line for the next few
months. There is undeniably consid-
cradle unrest in the relations between
capital and labor in the United States
today. The department is confident.
however, that no trouble serious
enough to threaten the national in
terest will arise, if only because both
sides have shown themselves alive to
their patriotic duty in war times.
None the less the conciliators of
the department are being kept busy.
They have smoothed out troubles in
the coal fields. in one of the biggest
munition plants in the country, in a
plant that is delivering locomotives
on contract to Russia, on one of the
most important munition-carrying
railroads, in a mandatory of electri-
cal supplies that was making deliv-
cries to the navy, all in the last few
weeks. Even a threatened strike in a
New Jersey lace-making town was
tied up with the war situation, because
the plants in question were working
on a contract to supply the United
States army with mosQuito-bar.
The council of national defense
plans to supplement the present ma
chinery for Cancellation with twenty
two special sub committees for media
ton and Cancellation, responsible TO
Secretary of Labor Wilson
IT iS N note that the
perts regard the present tendency to
unrest in labor as a natural result of
conditions. and not indicative of any
spirit that argues a desire to obstruct
normal and almost unprecedented.
Never has there been such a demand
for skilled labor of almost every class.
On the other hand, the cost of living
is steadily climbing skyWard. And
finally the laboring men of America,
especially the factory workers, have
been working under an abnormaliy
high tension for two years past.
There has been a steady pressure
from every side to increase the out
put, to make every machine and every
man turn out the maximum amount.
Mills are clamoring for raw material.
orders go begging, and those who
place the orders shout for speedy de-
livery. 1t works down at last to
continual appeal to the workman to
speed up his output. until, as one Of
fetal of the department puts it, the
workman acquires a "feather-edge." He
gets nervous and irritable. 1t is well
enough for the economist to treat OF
labor as a commodity, but labor as a
matter of fact is a mass of humanity
with nerves and temperamentS. The
workman goes ten hours at top speed,
and plods home to find that prices
Rave gone up until his high wages
begin to look inadequate. His family
calls for more money, and his foreman
calls for more speed. Finally he
throws up his hands and says by heck.
they'll have to raise my wages and be
content with my present output, >or I'll
strike.
Such at least is more or less the