New-York tribune., 1919-08-30
Is There a Public?

40 AACAC u 0OA1&s
Is there any longer public? And if
one still exists, has it paramount power?
The announcement of Director Gen
eral Hines to the striking railroad men
Of the Far West raises these questions.
But is there a public? That is to say,
is there general perception of the
reality of common interests? Faith that
there is gloriously lived during the
war. Men of all kinds put aside their
selfish desires, sacrificed them on the
altar of patriotism.
But since then doubt has deveoped.
Disintegrators and destroyers of patriot
ism have been steadily at work. Men are
putting class, OR group, or personal in
terests ahead of mass interests. There
has been a race as to which element
should the more successfully play the
game of grab
1t has seemed at times as if a great
principle were in dissolution-as if there
was slipping away from the common
SEM belief that no one can prosper at
t >:pense of others. Poisons from
abroad have been introduced and spread
in labor circles by agitators who neither
think nor feel straight, and by par
ticularly pestiferous American element
which calls itself an intelligentsia.
AS part of the campaign against the
existence Of public there is denial of the
public's paramount power. Men have not
only said they did not care as to the gen
erai effect of their acts (that they were
concerned solely about themselves), but
that real power is in the hands of minor
tiles, in the hands of organizations in no
way representative of or responsive to
the general mass of the people. Never
has so subtle an attack been made on
democracy.
1t is shallow to say that the labor or
carnations are solely or perhaps even
chiefly to blame, for we behold the spec
tacle of capital, or a large part of it,
Joining with labor in fouting the public.
We lately talked much of the antago-
nism of capital and labor. If the an
tagonism was functioning, the public
could have less reason for apprehen-
sion. The struggle would create a bal
ance of power, with the public a deter
mining umpire. But the antagonism, if
not gone, is weakened
That there was collusion between the
Interborough and the lnterbo9ough en-
ployes is improbable. But Connolly, the
brotherhoods president, did not conceal
his contempt of the public make it
pay" he said. He was friendly to fare
raising and sympathized with the woes
of Hedley
Throughout the country reason why
there has been so little resistance to
wage increases which have raised living
costs and thus laid the basis for more
wage demands is that employers have
learned the trick of passing the burden
to their customers. Many employers
have not cared. The money did not come
from their pockets. Indeed, they stood
to make more, for it is customary to
reckon profits on dollar percentages and
not on bushels or pounds.
The state is the res publico--the pub
lie thing. Destroy it, and there is no
republic. And the idea must be in the
thought of men before it is in their in
stitution. The idea needs to be estab-
lished in it's old vigor if masses of men
are to live happily and prosperously to-
gether. War within is even worse than
war without, and force if possible must
lodge, and lodge only, with the public.
The publics if. challenged, must consent
to be the third side.
The public has no option but to fight
for its life. 1t must be supreme or not
at all. No group can be allowed to be-
come master of the whole-have the
millions at their mercy and exact tribute
at will. If the contest is to come it is
better to have it come soon rather than
1~&o g.
| grow stronger if there are compromise
and capitulation