Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-10-09
Great Inclusive Third Party
From the Minneapolis Tribune.

Naturally there will be keen public interest
| in the deliberations and outcome OF the indus
trial conference which began in Washington
Monday by call of President Wilson. What
| are conjectural. That will depend largely on
the mood of the representatives of capital and
| labor in approaching their business and in car
rying on the deliberations.
| 1t is said that the spokesman for both cap
ital and labor will enter the conference with NO
set programs as to what should be DONE, That,
if true, is hopeful sign, but out over the coun-
| try there is an industrial situation as back
ground that may make harmony difficult
thing Of attainment. There is also, of course,
a purpose in making the two interests more
conciliatory in attitude and more sincerely dis
posed to arrive at Understandings that will be
for the good of the industrial structure the
country over.
| President Wilson specially requested that
the strike in the steel industry be deferred until
after this conference. The leaders of the strike
declined to heed the presidential wish, one of
| them giving as reason the fear that if the
strike were postponed the |. w. w. element of
the country would point to the American Fed
Grafton of Labor and say it was not the organi-
zation to be depended upon to look out for the
best interests of the laboring classes. The
| events of the strike have engendered wide
spread bitterness 1t is in the presence of this
feeling that the conference gets under way.
One thing is certain. There isn't going to
be any right agreement that does not make the
interests of the third party the general public
paramount to the interests of any group or part
of the public. That is automatic and ii should
be the text tor all the conferees to keep in mind
throughout the conference. In their open letter
to the conference the industrial engineers state
basic truth in these words
Great powers have been used arbitrarily
and automatically to exact unmerited profit
or compensation BY both capital and labor
This policy of exactng profit rather than rem
derng service has wasted enormous stores
of human and natural resources and has put
in places of authority those who seek selfish
advantage regardless of the interests of the
community.
of both employers and employees, be put aside,
or the time spent at this conference will be
worse than wasted. With that spirit prevail
.ing there will result an industrial impasse and
the effect is likely to be an intensifcation of
the class feeling already prevalent in an un-
healthful degree.
We have read and heard much in recent
years about the evils of special privilege
Granting the existence of such an evil in GER
tain forms, we find today powerful pressure
mot to abolish special privilege but to trans
fer it from one greedy base to another. This
demand takes no proper account of the prop
rietary interests of the whole American people,
and therein is its fatal weakness. In the pres
ent conference the great third party insists on
its prior claim to attention It is the great party
because it includes all parties, or at least in
vtes the inclusion of all parties.