Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-20
THE FORGOTTEN MAN MUST
BE IGNORED NO LONGER
He Is the Real Party In Interest in Every
Dispute Between Labor and
Capital

w to the necessity for recognizing in
labor controversies that the chief party
in interest is neither the employe nor
the employer, but the public.
To put it in another way, the chief
party in interest is what the late Will
liam Graham Sumner, of Yale, used to
call the Forgotten Man--that is, the
honest laborer, whatever may be the kind
of labor in which he is engaged, who is
ready to earn his living by productive
work This man goes about his business
quietly, meeting his own sproblems as
they arise and bearing with little COM
plant the burdens laid upon him by the
social and industrial unrest of those who
are insistently demanding that some one
else make it easier for them.
The men in conference in Washington
are forgetting this man just as he has
always been ignored in industrial dis
putes.
When the labor delegates offered their
resolution that the right of the employees
to select the men to deal with their
employers should be recognized they
were not thinking of anything but them
selves and the members Of the labor
unions.
When the employers offered their res
olution that "the right of the employer
to deal or not to deal with men or groups
of men who are not his employees and
chosen by and from among them is rec
ognized" they were thinking, not Of in
dustrial peace, but of way to retain
the fullest possible control Of their own
businesses regardless of anything else.
The attempt to reach compromise
over Sunday did not succeed, but no COM
promise proposed involves the recogni-
ton of the rights of Professor Summers
Forgotten Man.
Each group is insisting on the applica-
tion of form of paternalism in which it
shall be the parent and the other group
the child.
The employees insist that they shall tell
the employer what he shall and shall not
do just as a mother tells her child when
to go to bed and when to get up.
And the employers are anxious that
their right to tell their employees when
to work and how long to work and what
pay they may receive shall also be ad-
mitted, just as the father tells his small
boy what kind of clothes he shall wear
and when he may not smoke cigarettes.
Each group offers plausible arguments
in support of its contentious.
1t is discouraging for the observer to
note that neither group seems to recog-
nize that the other group is composed
of full-grown men who cannot be kept in
leading strings and is Indifferent to the
interests of the much greater number of
citizens which has to bear the expense
of the attempts of each group to force
its views upon the other by strikes and
lockouts and other devices which destroy
capital, decrease production and interfere
with the free distribution of the product
of its labor.
There is much prating about liberty
and much ignoring Of the fact that when
you talk of liberty you must have two
men in mind, yourself and the other
fellow.
Every extension of your freedom
trespasses in some degree on the free
dom of the other man and every extern
sion of his freedom trespasses in like
degree on your liberty.
It is commonplace and a platitude
that every right has its corresponding
duty, but in these days the duty is
ignored and the right insisted upon.
Persons who are clever enough to get
into positions of control, whether they
be labor leaders or employers, measure
their own rights by the paternal theory
and assume that they are the parents,
while they measure their duties by the
theory of independent liberty to do as
they please.
It is about time that we stopped prat-
Ting about liberty and began to find
| out what it means and then to practice
| it by insisting that the other man be
allowed to enjoy the same freedom OF
which we insist for ourselves.
If we cannot do this then the govern
ment must step in, formulate labor
code as it has formulated crimina
code for the protection of society anc
then apply that code to specific instances
1t has been the business of govern
ment from the beginning of time to dea
with selfishness, rapacity and fraud
Murder, burglary, forgery, grating ant
sex crimes are manifestations Of one o
another of these vices.
An attempt to tie up the industry o
the country in order to force highe
rate of wages may be a manifestation o
all three. 1t trespasses upon the right
of the Forgotten Man. 1t makes it NOR
difficult for him to earn living and t
support his family He is the goat, a
the vaudeville actor would say.
| The theologian might call him tn
scapegoat on which the sins of others ar
placed and then driven into the deser
to live or die as fate might ordain.
We can have no solution Of the indus
trial problems or the problems of capita
ism till the disputants begin to recogniz