Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1918-10-18

terfered with by the employers in any
should not discharge workers for
embership in trade unions, nor for
legitimate trade-union activities.
The right OF all workers, includ-
ing common laborers, to living
wage is hereby declared. In fixing
wages, minimum rates of pay shall be
established which will insure the
subsistence of the worker and his
family in health and reasonable
comfort"
Faithfully applying these pro-
visions, the members of the board,
both those representing the workers
and those representing the employers,
have in every case coming under its
jurisdiction where men were dis
charged for joining unions or for
union activities, ordered them re-
turned to their emploments with full
pay for all time lost. and under the
other provision have set a fixed mini
3
of labor If these minima are not
exactly uniform, it is because the
board has wished to avoid even
semblance of injustice. But the i'm
portant fact is that in each instance
the right to living wage has been
affirmed by word and deed.
What is still more important, the
evident justice of the boards awards
has set precedent which employers,
in agreement with their men are now
voluntarily following. Clear think
ing employers are coming to appre-
ciate increasingly the moral weight
and practical economy of accepting
the boards awards as standard for
the country. The impulse will spread
until, believe, you will see the
greater part of industrial America
standardized in recognizing the just
demands of labor.
But although many of these gains
sighted wisdom and agency of the
United States government, l would
not have you suppose that l think of
them, as some of your enemies try to
make them appear, as favors given to
suppliants. They are granted only
as right long overdue. But If
America is coming to see that they
are rights, it is because the trade
unionists of America struggled for
years to assert them vindicating them
bravely against all the claimed au
thority of political economy, as well
as the legalistic barriers erected by
kept lawyers.
What you saw clearly so many
years ago the country is only now
coming fully to understand. The right
to live, decently, wholesomely and
joyously, was at one time unknown
alike to our law and to our professors
of political economy. 1t is one of
those great truths which, in the Ian
guage of the Bible, were hid from
the wise and prudent and revealed
unto "babes''-the workers strug-
Cling Outlines without aducation for
this chance to live.
Nor do want you to think that I
suppose the mere adoptions of rules
of conduct or the enactment of laws
will fulfill this moral revolution.
These at best register the conscience
of the community and provide
weapon for last resort. The rights
of labor must be asserted and main
tanned by the wage-earrers them
selves through democracy in indus
try. Fair division of the product Of
labor will be made fact only by
the action of labor.
Laws, if they have any place
whatever. must reflect the rights of
the workers and must never be per-
mitted to become weapons for balk-
ing them in attaining them
But the only final and sure guar
antee is Industrial democracy. For
the protection of the workers, as we'll
as for the welfare of the nation. you
must continue to organize your
unions. strong and liberal, fearless