Omaha daily bee., 1919-10-10
Private War at Public Cost
From the New York World.

In the words of the president, the industrial
conference which opened Monday in Washing
ton was called to discuss fundamental means
of bettering the whole relationship OF capital
and labor and putting the whole question OF
wages upon another footing"
The fundamental question to be considered
with relation to industry is the same as that
which came before the peace conference at Yer
sail1es In the treaty as drawn, politics and dip
omacy of the old schools have shattered many
illusions, but in the covenant of the league OF
nations there is some thing more than promise
Of better day. Unless we shall have at Wash
ington a manifestation of the same spirit to do
away with industrial war the conference will be
in vain.
Peace between capital and labor is no more
possible without compromise than was the
agreement at the peace table to do away with
needless wars between nations. The funda-
mental question at Versailles was how to prevent
small groups OF men fxc-cising, political and
military power from plc2g.rg the world into
wholesale slaughter an, devastation. The
fundamental question at Washington must be
how to prevent small groups of irresponsible
men acting temporarily for capital or labor
from inficting upon the public the loss and
suffering inseparable from industrial warfare.
At the outset of this discussion the confer
ence will come upon the uncompromising atti-
tude of our Judge Garys who refuse to meet
representatives of their employees if they happen
to be "outsiders," and the equally uncomproms-
ing attitude of our Sam Gomperses with rela-
ton to labor employed in public service that,
law or no law, it never will surrender its right
to strike. So said the delegates from Germany
to The Hague conferences in 1899 and 1907
when disarmament and arbitration were pro-
posed, and thus, seven years before the catas-
trophe Of 1914, final notice was served upon the
world as to what was coming,
Here is the fundamental problem Until
that is solved there can be no progress. 1t will
do no good for the men in council to skirt the
edges of it. If they are not prepared to grapple
with it they may as we'll adjourn. They will
settle nothing else unless they lay the founda-
tions of their policy solidly upon public rights
as defined bv law administered not for the par
ticular benefit of class but for the good of all.
What are doing now is 1egalizng private
warfare at public cost. The history of self-gov-
erning freemen abounds in the denial or the sur
render of just such baronial privileges as now
are pronounced inaenable by some of our war
lords of capital and labor. They seek feelingly
OF enslavement, but nobody is going to ensave
them. Every constitution. every contract, every
law, every police regulation, involves the ren-
quishment by sections, interests or individuals
of some right once enjoyed. If that is servi-
tude, then we are all in bondage, but it is bond
age only to law and order.
Employers and employees who take these les
sons most profoundly to heart and recognize the
rights of the public as we'll as of one another
are the only ones who can contribute to the
reasonable adjustment of present difficulties.
If by their obstinacy and violence they force
the people to act in sef-defense their position
will not again be so favorable as it is today