Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-12-05
MILLIONS IN STRIKE LOSSES
ARE AN UNNECESSARY WASTE

When Justice Is Assured to Both Sides
in industry Neither viii Have the
Courage to Ask for More
TT DOCTOR GARFIELD we're a wiser
man he would put the work of some
of his representatives in Judge Ander-
sons court at indianapolis high in the
list of nonessential industries.
He might even deny himself fuel and
light.
He and his mon are wasting their time
at unrroduct've labor. What is more,
they are distracting the public mind and
beclouding issues that will have to be
clearly seen and thoroughly understood
before industrial peace is possible in
the United States. If the miners and
the operators are approaching mood
for reconciliation and settlement it is
not because of anything that the govern
ment is doing. They have been left to
blunder disastrously along the road to
calamity. If they are not awed and
afraid and sobered by prospect of uni
versal wretchedness and incalculable loss
their senses have deserted them alto
gether
The fuel administration has not helped
to bring a settlement Everything that
the government could do to irritate the
miners, to sharpen and harden their
sense of wrong, has been done.
The deadlock in the bituminous fields
certainly involves something Of greed
and opportunism on one side or the other
or on both, At bottom it is a great
human dilemma for all who happen to
be directly concerned in it, 1t is a de-
tail of the blind and painful struggle
by which humanity is trying to adjust
itself to new conditions.
Patience and logic, a sense of justice
and not little of human charity will
be necessary to the final settlement of
the coal strike and similar strikes. The
present fight in the coal fields obviously
means self-sacrtice and conservation for
many Of the workers who feel that they
have been badly treated and neglected.
For many of the mine owners it seems
to be a fight for survival amid new and
strange concerns. To the noncombatant
public it brings the prospect of misery,
idleness and hunger. Yet this. is the
looming question that the federal court
has attacked with rasping legalisms that
are altogether unrelated to any vital
concern Of the miners, the operators or
the country at large.
The government acting through Doc
tor Garfield and the federal attorneys at
Indianapolis, has never gone beyond the
outer fringes of the matter. Neither has
Judge Anderson.
You cannot produce coal by putting
labor leaders in Jail. You cannot pacify
and reassure labor by forcing on its
spokesman the role of martyrdom. You
cannot bring permanent peace and order
in the coal fields by compelling operators
to a sort of compromise that can be
justified only by rule of. temporary
expediency.
The quickest way to disarm miners or
operators who may be unfair is to give
them justice. No one on either side of
this or any other industrial controversy
has the courage to walk out in the open
and demand more than that.
The fuel administration has tried an
easier way and failed. Doctor Garfield
announced that he would permit no in
crease in the costs of coal, and invited
the country to be comforted by the
knowledge of his resolve while it en-
dured cold and hunger and saw its in
dustries succumb TO gradual and certain
paralysis.
The logic of that course was woefully
defective. If the country is not paying
| enough for coal to insure decent wages
and fair return on invested capital it
ought to pay more. Certainly it would
| be willing to pay more.
If it is already paying enough for
coal there is organized infamy some
where in the coal industry
The strike has been on for a month
Yet the public has no means of knowing
who is at fault or where the blame lies
The processes instituted at Indianapolis
will waste more valuable time. You
cannot depend upon injunctions and
other methods Of repression in dealing
with state of mind. Judge Anderson's
decisions will settle nothing.
The government itself could have
averted the coal strike.
1t could end the strike now.
Had the President and Congress sum
moned the miners back to work anC
promised them fair wages during ;
period necessary for a sweeping survey
of the coal industry; had the men beer
assured that final wage scales would
have been based not upon academic the
ory but on principles of justice and tina
this wage scale would be made retro
active if investigation warranted it; haC
a nonpolitical board been appointed will
membership qualified to report to tn
world the rights and wrongs Of coal min
ing, the needs of producers and the need
of the miners, there would be no diff
culty about the ultimate terms Of settle