Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-04-18
Is the Industrial Problem a Problem
of Mechanics
By Jesse Lee Bennett

SECRETARY DANIELS recently asserted
~ that German agents had attempted but
failed ITO stampede American labor, organ
izcd and unorganiacd into something very
nearly approaching a social revolution
One reason for failure the fact that
labor and capital are beginning TO under
stand each other"
A few days later William A. Appleton of
the General Federation of Trade Unions of
Great Britain, asserted that there must be
a complete understanding between labor and
capital. and that situation is rapidly assum-
ing concrete FORM
This statement was soon followed by Mr..
Schwabs classic assertion about the "des-
TIMES of the world being controlled by the
men without property" and each day now
witnesses comment from high financial
sources along some such lines as Mr.. Theo-
dore Shonts's recent declaration: such
widespread phenomena as each days news
brings before us. be 1t BolsheVism or COM
munism in Russia or l. w. W.-ism in America,
cannot be waved aside as passing disturb
ances. They are symptoms of disorder
that demands searching diagnosis and intel
ligent remedy
C. ]. Hicks, of the Standard Oil Company
of New Jersey, for example, says concerning
the new labor policies of his company: I'VE
have no cut-and-dried schemes of welfare
work You see the company and the men
are working things out together" And the
Archbishop of York procams: THE main
inpuIse for the reshapng of society will
come from the great labor organizations, but
ill N
which the employers frankly recognize that
they must be prepared to look at the new
situation in new spirit
TT1HE mere fact that the so-called indus
trial problem" is now being discussed so
franklv and so dispassonately is profoundly
signiNcant We have only to look back four
,ears TO recall conditions very different,
when an ominous silence concerning the IN
dustriaI problem seemed to forebode lneVl-
tahIe ordeal by battle. Even such short
time ago the opposed forces seemed to be
craving ever further and further apart. blind
10 the fact that all their basic ideas had
been in conflict many times before They
would not see that 1t Is the duty or civilized
,',o,, 10 forestall ordeal of battle by imagina-
tion. thought and a dispassionate attempt
to ren,ove causes of conflict by ascertaining
the underlying matter of dispute and apply
INC laws based empirical knowledge and
on justice.
The disposition OF labor and capital to
,aet each other half way and ascertain the
hssic cause of difference between them is
one of the most hopeful incidents in the his
tory of mankind For 1t indicates not only
tbat an eventual bloody and prohtless revo-
luton leading to a rapidly pragmatic bal
noe of mower may be forestaled, but also
that the too visionary and utopian schemes
~ social betterment preached by loquacious
hut immature and inexperienced doctrnaires
viii he aborted and never attain the brief
| hut bloody moments OF disllusonment to
which they seemed destined.
NEW revolutions the world has known
h have done much but alter a few definite,
Fundamental and basic wrongs and injus-
| tees but all revolutions have promised
| sor,c communistic dream world. There can
| he little doubt for example. that visionaries
bad made the masses of England believe that
| Magma Carta would turn Merrie England
| into the veriest Utopia. All Magma Carta
actually did was 10 establish habeas corpus
| and trial by jury, and l7b years of fighting
/ we're required before even these were en-
| forced They quieted unrest. Had English
statesmen been able 10 see what was wrong
| and have granted habeas corpus and trial
/ Nv Jury q decade before Runnymede such
I unrest would never have arisen 20 The dan.
/ noroue point Il ailaino4|
THO dispute between labor ana capital |s