Denver labor bulletin., 1918-11-16
PRESIDENT WILSON WILL
CONTINUE TO HOLD
THE BEST HAND.
Standards To Be Maintained by
Strength of Organized Labor
Despite Efforts of Corpora
ton Interests in House and
Senate; Program Public
Works Contemplated.
BY LAURENCE TODD.
Especial Representative The Denver Labor
Bulletin.)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9.-Repub-
licans in the House will have good
deal to say as to the conversion of
the war industries into peace indus
tries. In the Senate the two parties
are so closely balanced that two prog
ressive Republican senators can hold
the balance of power, if it so happens
that all the other members stick to
party lines on the rehabilitation is
sues. In view of the likelihood that
Theodore Roosevelt is to be the Re
publican candidate for the presidency
in 1920, it is reasonable to presume
that the Republican policy will be one
of trying to please both the labor
movement on the one hand and the
big business interests on the other.
For that reason the position of organ
lied labor in dealing with the new
Congress is not quite hopeless.
Labor's position can scarcely be
of Keating in Colorado, and of pro-
labor men in scores of districts in
other states, is bound to hinder the
legislative program of the railroad
brotherhoods, the organized metal
trades. the opponents of child labor,
and all the forces that are trying to
build into law the day-by-day gains of
the industrial battle field.
Engineer Supplants Trust Magnate.
The Nonpartisan League farmers in
North Dakota send three men to the
House to vote with labor, and they
help to send another man from the
Duluth district of Minnesota, where
Clarence Miller. of steel trust sympa-
thies, has been replaced by W. L.
Carss, locomotive engineer. John
l. Nolan of San Francisco comes back,
and Kelly of Pittsburg and Van Dyke
of St. Paul.
Some of the new men among the
Republicans are reported to be union
card men who are still loyal to labor.
One of the first issues to be settled,
when the new Congress comes to-
gether, will be the degree to which
the Republicans will interfere with
President Wilson's methods of putting
the industries of the country upon a
peace basis.
Wilson Holds Best Hand.
The President will probably not wait
for the Republicans to dictate what
shall be done. He has friendly Con-
gress for the next four months, and
he WILL probably get thru in that pc
riod, measure which will permit him
to make immediate arrangements for
sending home a large part of the men
now in training camps. That is, pro-
vided the German army is wholly sur
rendered or disarmed before that time,
and there remains no further danger
of war. The men now in France could
probably be brought home within six
months, but they will stay until the
peace congress has completed its
work. After that, large number of
them may still remain for a year or
more to police certain parts of Europe
and to help in the rebuilding of North
ern France and Belgium.
1t is difficult to see how the new
Congress can find good excuse to
demobilize any of the soldiers until
jobs under fair industrial conditions
shall have been secured for them. II
there is to be any payment of out of
work benefits for soldiers, it is only
reasonable that the government should
pay them. up to the moment civilian
job is Forthcoming. Acting upon that
theory, some of the progressive men
in the Wilson administration have been
preparing a plan for this transfer of
the soldiers from the military service
to civilian work.
Plan for Employm ment.
They propose that the government,
thru the 1900 community labor
boards, shall find out just how much
employment at each trade or calling
is to be had in each community. Then
the labor department is to notify the
employers that certain industrial
standards must be met-standards as
to hours, rates of pay, the right of the
workers in industrial plants to have
shop committees and to have n voice
in the actual management. Unless
guarantees are received that these
standards will be accepted and en-
forced in given locality. the labor