The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1918-10-26

want to put a bipartisan committee
of the senate and house in charge of
all reconstruction. plans; and the ad-
n11nistration, which wants to estab-
lish reconstruction commission,
which would be named 10y President
Wilson. Organized labor is not at all
please ID with the Republican scheme.
It knows that the bipartisan joint
committee would be run as a sort Of
political joint debate, which would
give no show at all to real RECONSTRUCT
tion such as the labor, movement de-
mands President Wilson, on. the
other hand, would name a commits
sion that. would perform its task,
probably as we'll as the Industrial
Relations commission, the Federal;
TisasAe commissions. or the National.
War Labor board have performed
theirs. - j.. - = -
For example, there are the .ner-,
chant marine and the new govern.
ment shipyards: The politicians want
to sell them. Organized labor sees a
chance of getting better wage stan
dard, better hours. better conditions
in every way, through: having the gov
ernment operate its own steamship
lines, it's own docks, its own ship
yards. When the war is past the is
sue must be fought out. The organ
izef employers are going to demand
that the government sell it's proper
ties. At the same time they will
demand the abolition Of the rules for
American industry set by the War
Labor board. Labor will be in a dan
gerous position if the employers gain
both points.
Government. operation of railroads
will proceed for 81 months after the
war, but then it will stop unless con-
gress shall vote to continue it. The
brotherhoods and the federation men
employed in the railroad service are
not at all convinced that government
operation has brought the millennium,
and certainly they have been very re-
sentful of the order issued by the
Director General forbidding them to
exercise the right, of running for polit-
ical office, but still they do not want
to go back to the old scheme. They
are going to have something to say to
congress, when the return of the roads
to private hands is threatened -.
That shall be done ii:-order to f1t
the returned soldiers and sailors; after
the war, into the most appropriate
jobs in American life, is azquestion
that the labor Legislative committees
have not yet really tackled. They are
studying the plans drafted by British
and Australian labor, and the propo-
sails made in France and Italy, but
. since American conditions are unlike
the conditions anywhere else, the
question cannot be answered SO easily.
For one thing, they are favorable
to a constructive scheme Of improving
the arid lands. the swamp lands, and
the cut-over lands, and the making c.
great numbers of farms, ready and
equipped for use by practical; farmers
when the farmers take off the khaki
or the navy blue. The. more real
farmers are helped to start raising
food, the: easier will b. the living
problem for city workers, and the.
greater will be the incentive to con
gress to meet the industrial problem
in the same big, constructive way. II
congress is to prepare farm Jobs for:
soldiers>afterS the wal, then congress.
can prepare shop Jobs for shop men,:
Once get the thing started and q
nationwide program of common-sense1
Generalization, withoutz any unem-s
ployment panic, will be developed j
In the meantime, Sterling and j is
associates are going to try to clean up
the legislative docket bjy pushing to
passage four labor bills-the Nolan
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