The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-06-21
MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The New Spirit Between Labor and Capital

The New Spirit Between Labor and Capital
"Out of the crucible of war invisible forces
have been released which are today affecting
every phase of economic political and social life
said Francis H. .Sisson, vce-president of the
Guaranty Trust Company of New York, in an adj
dress before the Virginia Bankers association,
Barriers of all sorts seem to block the path of
progress. Prophets Of despair are crying woe,
and the faint-hearted take counsel of fear. Yet
there those of US who cling to the legend that
shield still has two sides and are disposed to
consider as calmly as may be the important fac
tors which enter into the situation in the Unborn
hope that good may come.
THE obstacles which confront us must be re-
moved If we are to take the place in world leader
ship awaiting u.s. Among the most important of
these are the barriers to better understanding
and working basis between labor and capital
President Wilson did not unduy emphasize the
Importance of the problem when, in his latest
message to congress, he declared, The question
which stands at the front Of all others in every
country amidst the present great awakening is
the question Of labor.
No fair-minded man can take exception to
the sympathetic attitude expressed by the presi-
dent concerning the desirabity of improving
labor conditions, nor can any generous spirit
challenge the suggestion to make the men and
women who perform its daily labor happier in
their industrial and social lives.
But labor must be on guard against grave
danger, from which no one but labor itself can
save it. I.mean the peril of being nisled by false
friends, by impractical and unsound thinkers,
who seek to exert an influence that is unWar-
ranted by their experience or rather lack of ex-
perence, and to lead labor into the morass of I'M
tried, impractical, and unsafe experiments, which
cannot solve labor's problems, and serve only to
erect greater barriers between employees and en-
ployers as well as to injure the interests of So
ciety generally. Labor should be deaf to the par
or exponent of dangerous socialistic theories and
avoid pestilence the agitator who comes to
them in the guise of their own kind but who
would wreck the very house that labor is build
ing to protect itself from the elements Of indus
trial strife
1T may be that we shall have to institute in
this country something comparable to the indus
trial councils in England-national, district and
plant organizations for the various industries in
which employers and employees are represented
and which can act with authority and in orderly
fashion for their respective industries. The de-
gree of protection against certain Objectionable
competitive practices within their own groups,
which this type organization offers employers,
will probably prove one Of its principal benefits
But whether this or some other plan is adopt
ed, labor will doubtless insist increasingly upon
the right Of collective bargaining and, in the
long run, those employers will fare best who are
disposed to take labor by the hand rather than by
the throat Likewise, those laborers will gain
most and permanently who deserve to be taken
by the hand.
But collective bargaining is not a panacea
and alone cannot safeguard all the interest in
volved in the wage system! Back of all the ma
chinery for collective bargaining if it is to func-
ton web, must be the spirit as we'll as the form
of cooperation. Benevolent employers, sincerely
DESTROYS of giving thir employees generous treat
ment have time and again failed to win their
employees confidence or loyalty If such well-in-
tentioned efforts can fail completely and SO fire.
quently, may it not be that neither side in the
labor controversy really understands the other ?
Mutual understanding affords the only basis for
cooperation in productive enterprise.
Admittedly, labor is not always sufficiently
interested in the quantity and quality of produc-
tion-which constitute the source of wages and