Denver labor bulletin. [volume] (Denver, Colo.) 1915-19??, 1918-07-06
SECRETARY WILSON'S ADDRESS BEFORE
THE A. F. OF l. CONVENTION IN ST. PAUL

by virtue of federal legislation, to es-
tablish a minimum of fourteen years,
and while the supreme court has an
nounced that the method by which we
sought to accomplish it is not within
the limits of the constitution, those
who are favorable to the higher imi-
tation-and that means the great null
titude of our people-will find some
other way by which the limitation can
be made universal thruout the United
States. When started to work there
was not factory inspection law or a
mine inspection law on the statute
books of any state in the union. To-
day every industrial state in the union
has factory inspection system and a
mine inspection system with estab-
lished standards written into the law.
When l started to work there was not
law on the statute books anywhere
limiting the hours woman might be
employed in gainful and even danger
Gus occupations. Today many of the
states have limitations of that kind,
brought about by the insistent efforts
of the trade union movement of our
country.
Now Looking Forward.
When I started to work in little
mining town in Pennsylvania, a town
of some 5000 souls, there was not a
working man in the village who had
a carpet on his floor, a musical instru-
ment larger than mouth organ in his
home or any screens to his windows.
The reason was not that the workers
did not desire these things, but be-
cause the real wage measure in pur-
chasing power could not secure them.
Today in that same mining village
there is not house without a carpet
or its rug, there are few homes with
out pianos and there are curtains on
all the windows.
l cite these things simply to show
there has been a going forward of the
standard of living because there has
been an increasing of the real wage
of the workers of the country. And
that increase in the real wage for
the workers was not brought about
because of the generosity of the en-
ployers. There are multitudes of men
engaged in large business enterprises
who have generous impulses, who are
charitably inclined, who are willing to
grant of that which they have to help
those in distress; but men do not en-
gage in business out of charitable mo-
tives, they engage in business for the
returns they are able to secure from
the business, for the dollars and cents
that come back from their invest
ments, and, no matter how generous
they may be, no matter how charit-
able they may be, there is a point be-
yond which they cannot go in improv-
ing the conditions of their respective
workmen unless their competitors take
steps along the same line. The i'm
provement has not come by virtue,
1nt Nf la e a L
employers, but has come by virtue of
the persistent, intelligent action on
the part of the trade unionists of the
country.
Stop Military Government.
These developments-and there are
multitudes of others-are only posi-
BILE, in democracy they are not posi-
BILE under an autocratic government.
The institutions under which we have
progressed, under which we are en-
deavoring to work out our destiny in
our own way, have been threatened
by military government in Europe.
Most of our people now realize that
it is not simply because of the viola
ton of the treaty with Belgium and
the overrunning of that country, not
simply because of the massacre of the
Armenians, not simply because of the
destruction of Serbia, not simply be-
cause of the overrunning of Northern
France that we are engaged in this
struggle, altho all of these, or any of
them would be sufficient justification
for our having engaged in the contest;
but we are engaged in it, in addition
to these things, because our right to
work out our own destinies in our own
way, to live our own lives in our own
way has been threatened by the mill
tary government of Germany.
While we were at peace with Ger
many her agents were busy in our
country planting bombs, exploding
shells, destroying our factories and
taking the lives of our workmen,
without particle of justification for
doing it. Germany went out upon the
high seas and destroyed our vessels
there, sinking them with passengers
and sailors aboard without giving
of safety. And there were people in
our country some of them even yet,
who said that passengers should not
have been permitted to travel upon
those vessels, that they should not
have been allowed to endanger the
peace of their country by taking pas
sage on vessels that might possibly
be destroyed, thereby creating inter
national complications. Those who
have made this kind of assertion, and
are making it yet, fail to take into
consideration of the important facts
in the problem There could be no
passengers on those vessels unless
there were seamen to operate them,
and we were placed in the position
of either abandoning our overseas