The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-05-20
TEXT OF PRESIDENT WILSON'S
CABLED ADDRESS TO CONGRESS

/ happier and to be served better by the
communities and the industries which their
| labor sustains and advances? How
they to be given their right advantage as
| citizens and human beingsf
Can't Keep Up Present Pace.
| We cannot go any further in our present
direction. We have already gone too far.
We cannot live our right life as a nation
or achieve our proper success as in
| dustrial community if capital and labor are
| to continue to be antagonistic instead of
being partners, if they are to continue to
| distrust one another and contrive how they
can get the better of one another or what
| perhaps amounts to the same thing. calcu-
late by what form and degree of coercion
| they can manage to extort on the one
hand. work enough to make enterprise
profitable, on the other justice and fair
! treatment enough to make life tolerabe.
That bad road has turned out blind alley.
| 1t is no thorOfare TO real prosperity. We
must find another, leading in another
| ton. 1t must lead not merely to accom-
| mediation but also to genuine co-opera
| ton and partnership based upon real
| community of interest and participation in
\ control.
There is now in fact real community of
/ interest between capital and labor but it
has never been made evident in action. 1t
can be made operative and manifest only
in new organization Of industry. The
genius of our business men and the sound
practical sense of our workers can certainly
work such a partnership out when once
!
and sincerely adopt a common purpose
with regard to 1t.
Not by Legislation Alone.
! Labor legislation lies. of course chiefly
! with the states; but the new spirit and
method of organization which must be
effected are not to be brought about by
legislation so much as by the common
= capitalist manager and workman. Legis-
| lation can go only very little way in
commanding what shall be done. The or
corporate and individual initiative and of
practical business arrangement. Those
who really desire new relationship be-
tween capital and labor can readily find
! way to bring it about and perhaps federal
| legislation can help more than state legis-
| lation could.
The object, of all reform in this essential
! matter must be the genuine democratiza-
ton of industry, based upon full recog
milton of the right of those who work, in
whatever rank, to participate in some or
ganfc way in every decision which directly
affects their welfare or the part they are
| to play In industry. Some positive legis-
lation is practicable. The congress has nj
ready shown the way to one reform which
should be world wide. by establishing the
/ every field of labor over which it can
exercise control 1t has sought to find
| the way to prevent child labor, and will
hope and believe, presently find it. 1t has
| served the whole country by leading the
way in developing the means of preserving
and safeguarding life and health in danger
Gus industries.
Coordinate the Agencies.
/ 1t can now help in the task of giving
new form and spirit to Industrial or
ganization by cO-ordinating the several
agencies of reconciliation and adjustment
which have been brought into existence
by the difficulties and mistaken policies
or the present management of industry and
by setting up and devplplng new federal
agencies of advice and Information which
may serve a clearing house for the best
experiments and the best thought on this
great matter. upon which every thinking
man must be aware that the future de-
velopment of society directly depends.
Agencies of International council and
suggestion are presently to be created in
connection with the league of nations in
this very field; but it is national action
and the enlightened policy of individual Is
corporations and societies within each ma
ton that must bring about the actual re
forms. The members of the committee.
on labor in the two houses will hardly neet
suggestions from me as to what means the!
snail seek to make the federal government
the agent Of the whole nation in pointing
out and if need be, guiding the process,
Of reorganization and reform.
Must Give Soldiers Jobs.
1 sure that it is not necessary fol
mediate and very practical question o
labor that We should meet in the mos
liberal spirit. We must see to it that ou
returning soldiers are assisted in every
way practicable to find the places fo
which they are fitted in the daily work o
veloping and maintaining upon an adequat,
scale. the admirable organization create,
by the department of labor for piacin,
men seeking work; and it can also be done
IN at least one very great field by creatin,
new opportunities for individual enter
prise.
The secretary of the interior has pointe,
out the way by which returning soldier
may be helped to find and take up Ian,
in the hitherto undeveloped regions of th
country which the federal government hn
prepared or can readily prepare for cult
vat1on and for many of the cut-over o
neglected areas which lie within the limit
Of the older states; and l once more ia X
the liberty of recommending very urgentl,
that MS plans shall receive the immediat
and substantial support of the congress.
Commerce Calls Us.
Peculiar and very stimulating condition
await our commerce and industrial enter
prise in the immediate future. Unusua
opportunities will presently present them
selves to our merchants and producets Il
foreign markets and large fields ! 70
profitable Investment will be opened t
that ] am thinking. it is not chiefly o
that that l am thinking. Many great in
dustries Frustrated by the war wait to b
rehabilitated In many parts of the worl
where what Will be lacking is not brains o
willing hands or organizing capacity o
experienced skill, but machinery and ray
materials and capital. believe that GU
business men, our merchants. our manu-
facturers and our capitalists will have tn
VISION to see that prosperity in one par
of the world ministers to prosperity every
where: that there is in very true sens
a solidarity of interest turnout the worl
Of enterprise, and that our dealings wit
the countries that have need of our prod
ucts and our money will teach them t
deem US more than ever friends who's
necessities we seek in the right way t
serve.
Trade Friends. Not Rivals.
Our new merchant ships which have 4
some quarters been feared as destructiv
q rivals. may prove helpful rivals. rather
Il and common servants, very much needle
4 and very much welcome. Our great ship
yards. new and old will be so opened I
4 the use of the world that they will prov
. | immensely serviceabIe to every MARTINI
q people in restoring much more rapidl
4 than would otherwise have been possibI
& the tonnage wantonly destroyed in tn
4 haze to H. I,nr