Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-11
WHY NOT AN INDUSTRIAL CODE
WITH COURTS TO APPLY IT?
Great Principles Of American Govern
ment Employed In Regulation OF
Labor and Capital Would Give
Nation a Workable Policy

| TT is sometimes forgotten that the
effect of the conviction of criminal
! is not solely confined to the individual
who has broken the law His punish
ment balances the moral equation. But
the act under which he was sentenced
looks beyond a particular violator. Its
prime mission is the protection of society.
1t is urgently advisable that the mo-
mentous industrial conference in Wash
ington keep this fundamental principle
constantly in mind. BY ignoring it the
sessions will assume burdens which no
collection of human beings can lift.
Special recommendations to fit special
cases, real or anticipated, are hopelessly
incapable of settling every possible
future clash between labor and capital.
For this reason the convention is off
upon a dangerous tangent in seeking to
discover either'specifc balm for the steel
strikers or specific balm for their en-
| ployers. Operations along such lines can
lead only to chaos and to the perfect
futility of proclaiming in rigid set terms
a panacea for industrial unrest,
1t is quite as impossible for Mr.. Gary
anu MS ohfiOI LtI D. shi' bOlllp'io hiiA his
and the delegates between the Fright"
and cleft" wings of the convention to
forestall by resolutions all conceivable
crises in the industrial world as it is for
Chief Justice White to hand down in a
single decision an antidote for all in
fractions of the common and statute law.
This does not mean that the Supreme
Court is a failure. 1t does not mean that
the labor congress is simply pretentious
superfluity. Indeed, the sessions are in
some ways the most epochal held in this
country since the constitutional conven-
tion began its ever-memorable sessions in
the State House in the spring of 1887.
The purpose of that remarkable body
of statesmen was not the direct settle
ment of the various boundary quarrels of
the states. 1t was not the propounding
of a financial scheme to raise the Cont
mental paper money to par value. 1t
was not to fix a federal tariff schedule.
1t was not to settle a dispute over prop
erty rights between John Doe and Rich
ard Roe. 1t was not to find answers to
thousand and one pressing riddles. But
it was to provide upon broad general
lines the machinery whereby justice ac-
cording the greatest good TO the greatest
number could be secured in the land
The constitution makers adhered
closely to fundamentals, In so doing
they relied, not as revolutionists, but as
evolutionists, upon the vast body of COM
mon law built up through the centuries
in England and tested again and again
by decisions, which, although infinitely
varied in detail, derived their authority
from simple and unimpeachable bases.
How adaptable was this mass of funda-
mentals may be realized by the way in
which they fitted not only England as a
monarchy, but the United States as a
federal republic. We changed the names
of officials, we changed the proportions
of power in various classes of the public,
but we did not change the cardinal points
in a theory of society to which the
most advanced civilization of the age
subscribed.
The pillars of this recognized social
structure are legislative, executive and
judicial authority, clearly defined in
scope and limitations.
The vast majority of the present popu-
lation of the globe believes in these in
struments for rejecting the public will
today. In fact, reputation of them
leaves but two other conceptions of the
body polite available. These are the
wholly anarchic and the wholly social
istic
1t is safe to assume, despite crack
Drained dreamers and embittered icono-
clasts, that this country, regarded as a
unit, has no longing either for dras-
tically sociaistic or a wildly anarchistic
state. Its intense desire at the present
moment is for safeguards against indus
trial warfare and the constant alarming
threats of it.
The average citizen, the invariable
victim when employer and employees are
embattled, is quite naturally so distressed
| at what seems to be an entirely new
series of crises that he calls for abso-
lutely new remedies. Therein, it is argu-
able, lies the error in his demands.
The situation is not so novel as the
unfortunate innocent bystanders main
tain. Doubt on this point is swiftly dis
PEELED by the most superficial acquaint-
ance with the state of England in the
year 1881. Wat Tyler, Jack Straw and
John Ball raised very formidable social
rebellion in that exciting year. They had
valid grievances. So to lesser extent
did their masters.
The Fishmongers' Company of Londor
had the power of a modern labor union
There were unreasonable and tyrannica
employers in those days There were
dictatorial and autocratic workmen.
The strikers" mostly peasants, op
pressed by serfdom and a wage scale
fixed in the, interests of the landlords
marched upon London. The suffering
public then, as now, cried for confer
ence. 1t also cried for an immediate
miraculous and wholesale remedy, to b
administered regardless Of the estab
lished channels Of Legislative. executiv,