Denver labor bulletin., 1918-10-05
WILSON'S SPEECH
WINS GRATITUDE
Confined from PAGE one.)

the cOunSelS OF sophisticated men OF
affairs, who still retain the impress
sion that they are playing game of
power and playing for high stakes.
That is why have said this is a peo-
pies war, and not a statesmen's.
common thought or be broken"
Resist and Be Broken"
He does not say that revolution
threatens. AS in any country whose
labor movement is pleading for the
program he is urging; he merely re-
marks that statesmen who resist the
common people in these days will be
"broken."
81 take this to be the significance"
he goes on, "of the fact that assem-
made up of plain workaday people,
have demanded, almost every time
they came together, and are still de-
manding, that the leaders of their
governments declare to them plainly
what it is-exactly what it is-that
they were seeking in this war, and
what they think the items in the final
settlement should be. They are not
yet satisfied with what they have been
told"
Must Be Frank With People.
Is he speaking for the British or
the French or the Italian laboring
masses? In any case he speaks for
the allied nations, to the politicians in
Europe whose failure to be frank has
made those peoples turn to the Pres
ident of the United States for guild
ance. He is not disturbing the unity
of the entente; he is all at once mold
ing it into one vast, popular, inter-
nationality. The echoes of his chal-
lenge to these statesmen to be states
manlike will be heard in every trade
union meeting from Scotland to Sicily
There will be sudden panic among
the scheming politicians who had
thought of a hucksters' settlement of
the war. They will find that they
their peoples are all solidly behind
this idealist, the President of the
United States.
What is the meaning of this chal-
lenge to European politics?
Bluntly, it is a prophecy of Eu-
rope of republics.
That is to say, Europe in which
organized labor will finally be the ma
jority power in every parliament,
every ministry, every branch of po-
litical and industrial control.
Conferences between labor officials
and the secretary of labor and heads
of all the government departments,
bureaus and boards that deal with la
bor conditions have been in progress
here for the past two weeks, in an at
Hard Nut to Crack.
tempt to stabilize" wages. That's
an old subject; it has been brought
up in various ways ever since we en-
tered the war, and has proven too hard
a nut to crack. Beautiful plans are
made for setting fair minimum wage
and reasonable maximum wage for
war work of certain kinds, under con-
ditions existing at a given time and
place. But before any agreement can
be reached the cost of food and of
house rent has advanced, and the
whole thing is spoiled.
The thing chiefly desired by the
government seems to be guaranty
against extortionate wage demands in
any district, and against the payment
by one branch of the war organiza-
tion of so large wage as to pull men
away from other branches. The labor
men who have been in the conferences
are not confident of solution. They
see possibility Of the fixing Of a
maximum wage that will be fair
enough in most parts of the country
but will come too close down to the
cost of living in certain sections.
Bridgeport Machinists Win.
In Bridgeport all's well that ends
well. The latest from that troubled
town is the Interpretation given the
Eidlitz award on general industrial
bers of the war labor board-Messrs.
of oil oh nZhnrna
This Interpretation" gives the union
machinsts who struck recently and
were sent back to work by President
Wilson, every point for which they
quit the shops.
Nine points are named in the
boards rulings. They provide that
the companies shall not interfere in
the selection of shop and craft COM
mittees; that back pay at the higher
rates must be given all employees who
came into the shops up to July /, in
stead of only to those who were en-
ployed before May /; that the strik-
ers shall have proportionate represen-
tation in the industrial convention that
was chosen by the non-union workers
while the strike was on; that the ex-
aminer for the board shall Immediate
ly investigate charges of discrimina-
ton, and shall Immediately reinstate
employees pending such investigation;
that all strikers returning to work
at the Presidents request shall have
the right of reinstatement in their old
positions; that the local board of me-
diation and conciliation after its cleo
tion shall create specialized craft
boards, or other boards to work out
such problems as classification and
minimum rates of pay.
This last is the meat in the cocoa
nut. The machinists get special
board to present a classification scale