New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1919-10-29

WILSON IS THE GOVERNMENT.
by William Marion Reedy.
1 It comes upon one with startling effect
these days that we have more Of a one
man government at Washington than
was hitherto suspected. Mr.. Wilson
is all Washington, it seems. All things
wait upon his recovery. If there is
authority there certainly is no initiative
in it, its vessel or vessels. Without
the President the Labor conference
Ilanguishes in the doldrums. It's sepa-
ration into groups has not facilitated
procedure. Such proposals as have been
made lack specific vital force and are.
of vague applicability. The whole affair
has an amateur, parlor tone, and dis
appoints expectations. The Baruch idea
Of three months industrial truce
looked good at first, but unfortunately
"a three months truce implies labor's
consent to a status quo under which it
will continue to suffer the evils it wants
remedied. Mr. sGompers' counter pro-
posal that the conference take steps to
bring about an arbitration of the steel
strike is mastery Vancouver, even
though it looks as if the steel workers
4 how no eli hat &c 1o1>0
conference for, if not to deal questions
like the steel strike? How can such
thing be dealt with otherwise than by
arbitration? But there is Judge Gary
heading the employers group in the con-
/ ference, and declaring that he will not
arbitrate the issue between the Steel
Trust and its workers. Gompers has
brought the conference up against a
fact that has to be dealt with directly.
The issue is collective bargaining and
without it there can be established no
machinery for the working out of in
dustrial peace. Judge Gary will not
agree to do the only thing any labor
conference could be expected to do.
And there you are. The conference is
in grave danger of becoming ridiculous,
when the longshoremen tie up the port
of New York and the teamsters join
hands with them, and the metropolis
is forced to consider the possibility
of food shortage more distressing
than that in London during the strike
of the English railway men.
The miners too threaten a strike
spontaneously with the approach Of
cold weather. The conference confers,
but that is ALL Arbitration seems UNI
attainable, the participation of the
workers in the management and the
profits of industry is considered tenta-
lively and accidentally. These are
things the President suggested as indus
trial authorizations shortly after his
return from Paris, but he is not able to
impress them on the gentlemen he sum
moned to consider the state Of the nation
industrially. The conference without
Mr.. Wilson is Hamlet" without the
Dane, and the Forthcoming international
labor conference under the League of
Nations will be more SO. That the
situation is bad we need no better evidence
than the fact that the New York long
shoremen's strike is opposed by the
President of the American Federation
of Labor as in violation of the funda-
mental principles of unionism This
means that organized labor is beyond the
control of its ADLER, saner leaders, to
i quite dangerous eAtent. There may be
more of this if the labor conference hangs
fire much longer. To the multitude of
workers such conference looks like a
prodigious case of ssstalling." What is
needed from the conference is action that
means business. Shall there be arbi-
tration or not? If the President were in
condition there probably would be
manifestation of the spirit of accommo-
dation upon his insistence. The Steel
Trust shows no such spirit. 1t may be
said to defy the President and to futilize
the conference. With every big news
paper in the country condemning the
steel strike Judge Gary obstructs a
settlement in the only way it can be
reached, and gives notice that his group
will stand pat on the policy Of no arbi-
tration with trades unions not kept"
by employers. Without Woodrow Will
son on the job the conference bids fair
to be fzzle.
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