The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-05-30
PRES'T WILSON'S
LAST LABOR TALK
In Message to Congress He
Says He is Interested in
Men and Women
Who Toll

the front Of all others in every
country amidst the present great
awakening is the question of labor,
and perhaps | can speak of it with
as great advantage while enerossed
in the consideration of interests
which affect all countries alike as
I could at home and amidst the in
terests which naturally affect my
thought, because they are interests
of our own people.
BY the question of labor l do not
mean the question of efficient in
dustrial production; the question
of how labor is to he obtained and
made effective in the great process
of sustaining populations and win
ming success amidst commercial and
industrial riyalries.
mean that much greater and
more vital question-how are the
men and women who do the daily
labor of the world to obtain pro
gressiye Improvement in the con-
ditions Of their labor to be made
happier and to be served better by
the communities and the industries
which their labor sustains and ad-
vanCes? How are they to be given
their right advantage as citizens
and human beings?
We cannot go any further in our
present direction. We have al
ready gone too far. We cannot live
our right life as a nation or achieve
our proper success as an industrial
community if capital and labor are
to continue to be antagonistic in
stead of being partners; if they are
to continue to distrust one an
other and contrive how they can
get the better Of one another.
Or, what perhaps amounts to the
same thing, calculate by what form
and degree of coercion they can
manage to eXtort, on the one hand,
work enough to make enterprise
profitable; on the other, justice and
| fair treatment enough to make life
tolerable. That bad road has turn
ed out a blind alley. 1t is no thor
oughfare to real prosperity. We
must find another, leading in an
other direction and to a very diff
ferent destination.
1t must lead not merely to ac-
commodation, but also to a genuine
cooperation and partnership based
upon real community of interest
and participation in control
There is now in fact a real COM
munity of interest between capital
and labor, but it has never been
made evident in action. 1t can be
made operative and manifest only
in a new organization of industry.
The genius of our business men and
the sound, practical sense of our
workers can certainly work such a
partnership out when once they
realize exactly what it is that they
seek and sincerely adopt a common
purpose with regard to it.
Labor legislation lies, of course,
chiefly with the states; but the new
spirit and method of organization
which must be effected are not to
! be brought about by legislation so
much as by the common counsel
and voluntary cooperation Of cap
italist. manager. and workman,
LEGISLATION can go only a very lit
! tie way in commanding what shall
be done. The organization of in
dustry is a matter of corporate and
individual initiative and of prac-
tical business arrangement Those
who really desire a new relation
ship between capital and labor can
readily find a way to bring it about
and perhaps federal legislation can
help more than state legislation
could.
The object of all reform in this
essential matter must be the gen
uine decentralization of industry,
based upon a full recognition Of the
right of those who work, in what
ever rank, to participate in some
organic way in every decision which
directly affects their welfare or the
part they are to play i'm industry.
Mrs. c. w. Patterson. 1906 Du-
pont Street, Bellingham, Wash,
says that her two children, Margar-
etc and Irene were suffering badly
.