The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1919-11-20

or extracting IL from the whole public
through the treasury as at present
The roads prefer to be self-supporting;
and this view of the proper railway
position is shared by the peoples rep
resentatives at Washington. Nobody
is keenly anxious TO have higher rates,
but the national capital regards a rail
road rate increase as preferable to
railway stagnation, which is the only
alternative. A small increase in rates
is preferred to a large decrease in eff,
ficiency and service. There is not
much sympathy for loose conversation
about the advance in living cost is sure
10 follow rate-advances." Facts do not
sustain that contention. On the con-
trary, they prove that living cost lis
only slightly, if at all, affected by the
increases or decreases in railroad
rates
Strike unionists and salaried officials
of union labor organizations who
started in by envying the mahogany
tables around which the capitalists
long time been holding their own con-
ferences around their own mahogany
boards; and whether it is the influence
Of the wood or the same kind of in
toxication that brought on the down
fall Of the autocratic capitalists of the
country does ont appear; but in any
event class-capital has had it's big day
in American industry and has been
obliged to pass out to make way for
more democratic methods in finance
and business; and the same kind of
Dragging that class-capital did about
owning railroads, giant industries,
and running" cities, counties and
states, has been adopted by the pro-
fessional plutocrats strike-unionists
who have been trying to bluff the
country into the false belief that a
calamity in national industrial af4
fairs is at hand. The steel strike and
the coal strike have demonstrated the
fallacy of attempting to coerce the
public and the government; and re-
gardless of the results as they affect
the employers and the employees,
these strikes are apt to be like the
thunder shower that is followed by
clear weather. 1t is not time to
feel too optimistic, because there are
wide gaps to close between employ
ers and employees, and big economic
problems must be worked out. Never
theless the unrest" in industry ap
pears to have had its origin princi
pally around the mahogany tables of
boards of directors of workmen's fed !
erations, brotherhoods and unions,
and the warnings against "revolu-
ton" and the like seems to have pic |
tured an imaginary, rather than a
real menace. The refusal of the gov
ernment to be stampeded by the strik- !
ers in the coal mines, and the failure
OF the steel strike is not as many
nave adjudged, a failure of union la
Dor. 1t is a triumph for union labor !
since in the showdown it must be
reasonably apparent to all people who
think that two conditions exist in the |
labor situation of this country. First:
That there are too many autocratic
leaders sitting around mahogany Ia |
bIes. This is a very important dis. |
closure which labor itself may be de- |
pended upon to remedy. Secondly: |
1t has been clearly proved, in the |
course of these strikes, that the wage
earners of the country are wholly |
loyal to the government. True, a few
strike-unionists and salaried officials |
Of union labor organizations, by pick
ing out industries filled with foreign.
ers, have thrown quite scare into
the people of the country, but there
is clearing up of the showers right
now, and it discloses organized labor
massed shoulder to shoulder to sus
tain its rights and it's principles,
while at the same time there is
to accord capital the privi-
lege to Give and let live" that it
claims for itself. Industrial unrest'
appears daily to have been priaci-
pally the artificial respiration of the
tabled gentlemen who have
grown into ease and comfort as the
leaders" of labor.