Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-14
THE BRIDGEPORT
STRIKE SETTLEMENT
Significance Of the Presidents New Attitude
Toward War Industries

ueallng yesterday WIN the sulhe az
Bridgeport was new thing under the
sun. And yet Mr.. Wilson's method was
not so startlngly new or so significant
as the situation that made it necessary.
No single principle of trades unionism
was involved in the general question
raised by the 1000 striking gunmakers
at Bridgeport. Again, in an extraordi-
narily difficult field, the President found
himself opposed to "a little group Of
willful men," He found rebellion er-
isting withn the ranks of trades union-
ism and headed by group which defied
not only the war labor board but the
officers of their own organization. This
in itself might not have justified an
invasion of the field by the President.
But there were other ominous symptoms
at Bridgeport.
The gunmakers were operating in this
instance as a self-isolated group, recog-
nizing no interest or authority but their
own. They were, apparently, doing their
utmost to set up similar movements in
other industries essential to the war.
They threatened not only an interruption
in war work. They threatened the prin-
cipleS upon Uhich labor organizations are
founded. And, therefore, while it is not
cheering to find the President breaking
a strike under the weight of govern
mental war machinery and invoking the
processes of the selective service and
the Federal employment system to this
end, there can be no doubt whatever
about the justice and wisdom of the
course he followed
Certainly the iron prejudices of en-
ployers on the one hand and the budding
Bolshevism that has made itself evident
among remote groups of workers on the
other have driven the President to un-
happy alternatives within the last year.
1t is not like Mr.. Wilson to threaten a
group of men-especially workingmen-
with a revocation of the simple rights
granted them under the Constitution and
to force strikers back to work by so
unusual a method. Nor can it be sup
posed that the President seized the West
ern Union and the railroads and the
Smith & Wesson arms plant because he
and the members of his Cabinet have not
enough work and plenitude of wor-
, ries in other avenues of war effort. In
few of the industrial disputes recently
settled by heroic methods have the rights
and wrongs been entirely on one side.
The surly prejudice of the plant, owners
against the trades union principle ag-
gravated the difficulties at Bridgeport
and served, by. constant irritation, to
elaborate and extend the trouble until it
became menace to the country. And,
strangely enough, small groups of un-
representative trades unionists in many
quarters have lately been doing much to
encourage this very prejudice among the
employers.
What the President has done in each
instance is to recognize the moral obli-
cation of industry as whole to the
fighting armies at the front. He has
acted upon the belief that the interest
and safety of the nation itself and of
the men in France are of greater impor-
tance than the prejudices and concerns
of different groups which exist peace
fully, comfortably and in great pros
perity within the safe borders of the
United States. This attitude of mind is
a complete justification for the sweeping
departure from traditional methods re-
fected in the edict sent to Bridgeport
yesterday. No one who has stopped to
realize what the war is about and no one
who has a son or a brother in the army
overseas will do other than applaud Mr..
Wilson for course inspired by courage
and sngleness of purpose.
Meanwhile, it is interesting to observe
carefully the conditions with which the
President has had to deal in several
recent labor disputes. At Bridgeport
and in some of the other industries the
employers or the employees have held to
the ancient rule Of "every man for him
self" This was the case at the Smith &
Wesson gun factory. And yet that prn-
ciple is one which mankind has every
reason to detest at this particular hour
1t cannot work in the present emergency
The gunmakers at Bridgeport help to
provide an interesting study for any one
who would wish to tabulate and envalue
the wars reactions in America. Debs
was indicted in Cleveland and charged on
one count with attempts to interfere
with the production of war essentials" :"
He was convicted for attempts to hinder
the war program and is liable, in his old
age, to a sentence of sixty years. i'm
prisonment and vast fine. And vet
none of Debs's prosecutors charged that
he was animated by selfshness or that
he has ever been anything more than an
unbalanced and sometimes dangerous
zealot.
Factory owners and workers who are
still under the delusion that the ,car IL