Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-11-12
POWER THAT STOPS STRIKES
CAN REMOVE THEIR CAUSES
The Next Step for Uncle Sam Is to
Bring About Mediation in All
Industrial Disputes

! WHEN John L Lewis, mead OF the
w United Mine Workers, announced in
indianapolis that the mine leaders in
! conference in that city had decided to
accept the decision of the court and ex-
| planned that eve are Americans and
cannot fight our government" he attested
! to the fact which some people need con-
stantly to be reminded of-that there is a
| power in this country greater than that
! exercised by any labor union or any
other internal group or organization,
whatever it may represent.
That power is the government Of the
| United States.
| One of its courts had commanded that
! the strike order be rescinded Back Of
/ that court was the will Of more than
| 100.000,000 people.
| The government is the will Of the peo-
pie. That will is expressed and enforced
through regularly chosen officers whose
duty is to make it effective.
The government is not an abstract
thing apart from the people.
1t is not a group of men who impose
on the people their own will.
1t is the agent of the people with the
power of attorney to act for the people
in every emergency.
In essence it is the people themselves
| in action.
The coal strike was ordered by the
mine leaders in disregard of the popular
| expressed by the President. He
I protested against it before it began. He
urged settlement by arbitration between
the employers and the employees, and he
was merely expressing the sentiment of
the nation on the issue. He had power
| given to him by Congress to enforce the
will of the country.
But the labor leaders thought for a
moment that they could bluff their way
through because the President would be
afraid of the 'labor vote" They guessed
wrong. The election in Massachusetts
assured the President that he was right
! and the mine leaders were mistaken in
their Interpretation of the popular will.
| And now the labor leaders have sur
| rendered "under protest" and are admit
ting that they cannot fight the govern
ment.
Ungrudgingly and without mental
reservations the President must be COM
mended for his action in this matter.
His course was without precedent, but
he had the courage to do the right thing
in national emergency, when radical
| leaders were seeking to use a vast mass
| of honest workingmen to hold the coun-
try by the throat until the demands of
| the leaders were granted.
| He has prepared the way for insisting
that both employers and employees shall
| consent to settle their differences by
mediation without first upsetting the
business of the country. The interests
of the country as whole are paramount.
| They overtop the interests of the steel
manufacturers or the coal operators as
class just as they overtop the interests
| of the labor-union workers as a class.
And if the public interests are conserved
the interests of employers and workers
will not suffer.
Emphasis just now needs to be laid on
| the fact that society at large is a third
party in every industrial dispute, with
stake in it of far greater moment than
any which employer or employed hazard
by accepting a policy of conciliation and
mediation.
| The coal strike is ended within ten
days after it began because public senti-
| ment would not support it. 1t was
doomed to failure from the beginning
because public sentiment opposed it.
The steel strike will collapse any day
now for the same reason. And the talk
of a strike of the railroad workers which
has filled the newspapers from time to
time in recent weeks will soon be heard
no more.
The determination manifest in Wash
| ington that there shall be no interruption
| in production and transportation during
the period of readjustment after the war
has put an end for the time being to the
plots of the l. w. w. radicals and has
! guaranteed to the real Americans,
whether in labor unions or out of them,
the right to work and the right to make
a peaceable adjustment of wage scales
with their employers.
Every genuine American labor-union
man should be satisfied with the outcome
! of the controversy, just as he was glad
of the rebuke administered to the dema-
gogues in Massachusetts who sought to
get into Office by pandering to class
prejudice and stirring up racial animos-
| ties.
And every other American must re-
gard the situation with a chastened
spirit.
| If we had been doing our duty with
the great mass of foreigners who have
been attracted here by the prospect of
work at good wages the radical labor
leaders who have attempted to pervert
the labor unions to their purposes by
"boring from within would not have
found a pliable minority on which to
| work.
The foreigner must be Americanized,
whether he be a coal miner or a steel
worker or what not. There are hundreds
of thousands of them who cannot sneak