The Topeka state journal., 1919-10-24
THE PuBLIC,s MOVE.

THE PUBLIC'S MOVE.
The labor group in the industrial
conference has been insistent on the
proposal for arbitration of the steel
strike. Labor leaders have never been
consistent on the question of arbitra-
tion. Had they not opposed it. there
might have been a compulsory arbi-
tration law on the statute books long
ago. They favor arbitration when
they want it but oppose it when the
employers want it.
We shall doubtless be compelled to
travel a considerable distance before
We attain equitable and mutually sat
isfactory settlement of all matters at
issue between employers and en-
pIoyes. But we shall gain that goal
the more quickly and the more surely
if we follow a road defined by equal
rights and equal duties and RESPONSE
bilities for both parties. If we do not
follow that road. we shall never at
tain that goal.
Mr.. Gompers says that arbitration
of economic disputes must always be
voluntary. and that workmen, on rail-
roads and elsewhere, must always
have a right to strike
It must be obvious. however, that in
taking that attitude, says Colonel
Harvey in his weekly. he is in one re-
spect setting himself in opposition to
those advanced principles of social or
ganization with which trades unions
are supposed to be in touch and in
harmony. For years some of our most
conspicuous statesmen have been urg
ing obligatory or compulsory arbitra-
ton of all international disputes. with
out reservation. Certainly if sovereign
states are to be under compulsion to
submit to arbitration. it would be COM
petent and not inappropriate for such
a~state to require its citizens individ-
uaIly or organized, thus to submit
their disputes.
There is a special reason for de-
manding such disposition of railroad
and other public utility disputes, be-
cause in them are involved not alone
the interests of the disputant parties.
the business profits of the employers
and the wages of the employees, but the
comfort, the convenience, the impera-
tive necessities, of the entire public.
The state charters a railroad not mere
Iy for the sake of giving its builders
and owners a chance to make money
and it's employees a chance to earn
wages but in order to provide the pub
lie with needed facilities for travel
and transportation, and it is no less
concerned with keeping those facili-
ties unimpaired than it is with pro-
tecting the dividends of the stockhold-
ers or the wages of the trainmen and
engineers.
The time has come when the pub
lie, for its own protection, should in
sist on compulsory arbitration regard
less of the wishes of the other parties.
Organized labor has generally been
vociferous in its condemnation of en-
ployers for ever, in any case, declining
arbitration. and has intimated that
they ought to be required by official
compuIsion TO submit to that, course
whenever organized labor demands it.
At the very time when he was fore
IDLY protesting against compulsory ar
bitration, Mr.. Gompers was with equal
force inveighing against the steel oper-
ators for pot accepting it, Surely if
arbitration lis to be voluntary on the
one side. it must also be voluntary on
the other. If the employees are to be
free to refuse 1t and to go on strike
rather than to submit to it. their en-
pIoyers must be equally free to do the
same But it is up to the public to
see that neither shall be permitted to
bring the great industries of the coun-
try to a standstill.