The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1919-10-25
SENTIMENTALITY AND LABOR

There is a great of sentimentality involved
in every controversy between employer and his
employees. Whether dispute is between a small
employer and a few poorly paid workmen a public
service corporation and body of highly paid expert
employees who realize that they halt the industry
OF nation, there is tendency on the part Of the
general public to presume in instance that the
men who are demanding higher wages shorter
hours in the nature Of things, justified in
their demands and therefore deserving of public
sympathy and support. Such support, given without
question and without inquiry probably of the
chief factors In bringing about the success Of nu-
merous strikes in every Industrial field.
When the employee organized and tasted the sweet
ness of long succession of victories. he quick
20 recognize the value of public opinion did all
he could to keep alive spark of sympathy for
his cause. In these efforts. he has merely been
among the first to appreciate the Importance of
propaganda in pupblic affairs and has probably
done more than right. But the people who
stil take a sentimental view Of labor disputes who
presume that every strike is called for just pur
pose and that the employee a person whose every
demand should be granted whatever the reason and
whatever the cost, do not apparently realize that
the relation of the employer and employe has
changed greatly in recent years.
1t would be unfortunate if public opinion ever
reached the stage where 1t always adjudged either
side wholly right wholly wrong The just attitude
for the public to would recognize fact
that the relations of employer and employee very
much the same as the relations between buyer and
seller. Each tries to safeguard his own interests
and each sometimes overreaches I'm trying the
best Of bargain. They the same plane con-
tending in wholly unsentimental manner, not nee
essary for rights. but advantages privileges
Sometimes is right, sometimes the other; but 1t
is seldom correct to presume that either party
labor controversy is wholly right wholly wrong
until the facts in the individual carefully
studied and accurately weighed.
The public should recognize the fact that the en-
ploye is at least well equipped get what he
demands as is his employer and it should withhold
sympathy from either side in any specific dispute
merits of the rival claims; it should recognize @he
less than business proposition effort at coec-
tive bargaining in which high price possible
Is sought for labor that is already at high pre-
MUM. Above all. blind emotion should not be al
lowed to dsplace 1t is absurd for
to become sentimental over demand for twelve
dollar day it would be to weep when the corner
grocer balks at jobbers demand for seventy per
cent profit on a shipment Of potatoes.
In weighing the arguments for against airy
strike, consideration should be given general prn-
ciples well specific motives. Just now, it Ia
almost universally recognized that the great
of the nation is production, and production,
to make up for the tremendous of war and
correct the unfavorable balance between money and
commodities which Is the primary the high
of living" If the urgency of the for pro-
duction realized by the sentimentalists who
approve of trivial strikes that make production
possible. public opinion would force the strikers
to defer their disputes until the had recov-
cred from the 81 ok of war;